“Every holiday season there seems to be one particular item that stands out as the ‘must have gift’ of the year,” he writes, “and in 2012, early figures lead us to believe that this could be the iPad Mini. Truth be told, don’t tell my kids but there are already two sitting under our tree at home.”

His evidence: Impressions from Apple’s (AAPL) new tablet recorded by Millennial Media’s mobile advertising partners grew an average of 28% every day in November. By comparison, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire, 2011’s hot tablet, grew 19% per day during the comparable period last year.

Meanwhile, Apple’s iPad mini supplies are rapidly catching up to demand. Ship times on the company’s online store are now down to one week.