I had the same problem today. I just arrived home for the holidays, and I carelessly almost opened the Kindle box right of him the recipient. I just locked myself into my room and set it up. I suggest doing that. Haha.
My biggest problem was getting it on the wifi. I run MAC address filtering so I had to get to the computer to enter it. My youngest spent the night with their dad Tuesday, so yesterday morning instead of getting them to school I set it up! The teen never gets up until I go in there, so it worked out perfect. I do need to charge it, but I have a plug in my closet and can pull that off. The bulk of the books are on it and in collections, and I have some sitting there to send once I turn wifi back on.
It was good thinking on my part as it's my only chunk of time between now and Christmas "kid free"!!