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When I was a kid, my favorite months of the year were November and December, not because of snow days or cookie baking but because it meant that I didn’t need to clean my closet. “Have you tidied your room today?” my mom would ask. “Yes, but I have your presents in the closet, so you can’t look,” I’d tell her. Sometimes it was true, but more often I hadn’t even gone Christmas shopping yet. I just didn’t want her to see the volcanic eruption of clothing that seeped out of my closet and onto my floor, an unending flood of polyester lava. To this day, when I’m in a rush, I shove dresses into drawers and throw cleaning supplies on top of my shoes because there’s no more room on the proper shelf. Still, every few months I try to tame the beast by putting everything back in its rightful place … only to make a mess of it 10 seconds later.