counting down

I love advent calendars. They are the physical representation of the awesome anticipation of Christmas. I think everyone should have one... When Mason and I were first married and he told me that he had never had an advent calendar growing up I made him one. It took forever and it was sort of crappy and home made looking and I think he thought I was nuts... but boy did I feel like I 'did' something :-)



I can remember the paper calenders that I had growing up. They always had some old timey snowy village scene on it, with tons and tons of glitter. Every night I would pull back the cardboard flap to reveal some visual relic from the past....



Last year was the first year for Braden to do the paper calendar. For a couple years before that he had a felt one, which hung on the front of his closet door. It was shaped like a tree and had 24 pockets with numbers on it... he would move the candy cane to a new pocket every night. Cute, and perfect for his age... but nothing really special.



Since his birth I have been looking for the perfect advent calendar. I wanted one that was like the paper ones I had as a kid. A three dimensional snowy village scene that lights up from the in side and has little doors and windows that you open up each day.



As far as I can tell, nothing like that exists... all of the 3D ones have little doors and windows with a space behind it to put a treat... either a small toy or candy. I so do not have time to pick out 24 itty bitty toys, and I don't want to encourage more candy eating than I have too. At one point I thought about having a little piece of paper with some sort of Christmas activity behind each door ... so that one day we can make cookies, the next we go ice skating... etc etc... that is WAY too time consuming...



I realize that paper calendars with glitter all over them can be a touch girly... so this year I started my search early (like September) to find one that was suitable for B. I found one that I deemed pretty much PERFECT. It still had the snowy town thing going for it, and tons of glitter.... but in the center of the scene popping out on its own was a vintage VW bus...



I was (as you can imagine) quite excited and proud of myself for finding something very heirloom-y looking and yet it would appeal to Braden. On November 30th I could hardly contain myself as I told B I had a surprise for him. We opened up the box with the calendar in it and it seemed like he liked the bus . We opened it up and set it on his dresser... ready for the next day...


December 1st came and in the afternoon a box arrived. A large box from Braden's Grantie.... we opened it up and my heart sank... to my stomach, past my knees through my shoes into the ground where upon it was immediately crushed by the LEGO City (build a toy each day) Advent Calendar....

He humors me... each night, going through the motions of peeling back the cardboard of his cheap little flimsy good for nothin' crap calendar that mommy gave him.... then he DIVES head first into his Lego calendar. Carefully pulling back the tab which reveals a small toy to be assembled. All 24 toys eventually form some sort of city in the end. Braden carries this box around, eats with it, stares at it, finds all the numbers so he can be ready to open the next door.

Maybe I have gone about this thing all wrong. Maybe I should have just saved the bus calendar for next year... Maybe this will be a wonderful memory years from now... maybe I crushed my mama's heart too over a present back in the day....Maybe I can someday learn to love the LEGO calendar...

... maybe.