Just Thinkin' ...on Advent Calendars

What the heck was I thinking?!

If you are a long-time reader of these columns, you may recall that I have a particular affinity for the Christmas season. I've written to you about the importance of the key holiday that falls between Thanksgiving and Christmas (Decorating Day ), how I learned to appreciate the value of (gasp!) colored lights and really large lawn ornaments (preferably in the forms of polar bears and snowmen), and my affinity for the secret gifts of the holiday lines that I once dreaded (long lines at McDonalds usually result in super hot, fresh fries). But today, my small-town friend, I am not feeling cheery.

Not positive.

Not festive.

Not, not, NOT!

You see, I have an advent calendar.

And it's ruining my life.

How do any of these things start, really? With a lovely gesture of goodwill - that's how.

Just two short Christmas seasons ago, I was walking around in the truly yuppified store called Restoration Hardware, a sort of combo Pottery Barn and...well...Pottery Barn (but with a much larger selection of knobs and hooks, in case you need a larger selection than the world currently offers of knobs and hooks).

I like Restoration Hardware for a very specific reason during the holidays. They tend to carry a lot of throw-back toys and games and stuff that I can sort of remember being surrounded by when I was a kid, but my pushing-middle-age- memory is just too hazy to proactively remember to look for some of the cooler stuff that I can introduce to my own children now (and an added plus is that not one of these items seems to be in the form of a PS-Nintendo-Xbox).

So I'm making my way around the store, admiring the original Scrabbles with the real wooden boards and letters, the metal tops that put out sparks when you spin them, the glass bird creatures with bulbous bellies full of colored water that will pretend to drink forever if you tilt their beaks down and let them go...you get the picture...when I was stopped short in my tracks. There, right in front of me, was a wooden advent calendar - in my choice of ‘cream' or ‘wintergreen' - with twenty five little one inch-by-one inch doors just begging to be filled with a little treat or toy. It was brilliant! And it didn't look at all like My-Friend-Anna- Rego's LL Bean Christmas Advent Calendar.

I'd been eyeing My-Friend-Anna-Rego's LL Bean Christmas Advent Calendar ever since her parent's gave it to her so many years ago. Hers is all wood and beautiful and, when she got it, you couldn't find things like that. In the LL Bean Christmas Catalog that year, it was billed as an heirloom type of thing that you could pass down to your kids because they would have so many excellent memories of excitedly opening the doors to reveal the wondrous treats inside, as they counted down to Santa's arrival (and the birth of Christ - also important).

I'd coveted it (yes, a sin, but I have mentioned my ‘lapsed Catholic' status before to you.). I dreamed about it. I fantasized about thinking out the little prize behind each door so that a magical squeal of delight would rip from each of my cherubs when they opened ‘their' doors on ‘their' days. Oh how I wanted a wooden advent calendar of my very own, but two things stopped me. The first was that I felt a little funny ordering the exact same advent calendar because hers was very cool and a gift to her from her parents, whom I love very much (even though they are Pittsburg Steelers fans). The second was that I secretly hoped that my nearly perfect husband would use his Super Spidey Sense and just KNOW that I coveted My-Friend-Anna-Rego's calendar and embark on a perilous journey to bring me back one of my very own.

As I said, he is NEARLY perfect. His mind-reading skills have been somewhat unreliable over the years.

So, no wooden advent calendar with the little doors to put may well-thought-out treats in. Until that fateful day in Restoration Hardware.

I was so excited to walk out of the store balancing my newly purchased, ‘cream' Advent Calendar with little doors sporting the numbers one through twenty-five in a very holiday-ish scrolly font. I was so excited to get it home and open the box and it didn't even bother me that it was encased in the type of Styrofoam that almost immediately deteriorated into very holiday-ish itty bitty staticky snowballs that stuck to everything including me, my cats, and all my dust bunnies.

More importantly, my kids were very excited to see what I brought home and set up, front and center, in my kitchen - exactly where they would see it first thing in the morning - every single morning in December - every single December - FOREVER.

But I forgot one thing.

One very important thing.

THE thing.

When you buy a wooden Christmas Advent Calendar with one-inch by one-inch doors just begging to be filled with treats and toys, you have to fill it with treats and toys that will evoke those little squeals of joy from you cherubs....FOREVER.

Let me do the math for you (because it's Christmas time and I feel charitable).

25 little one-inch boxes per year
78 years of average current life expectancy for boys
82 years of average current life expectancy for girls
GRANDCHILDREN

That comes out to approximately four million two hundred and thirty four thousand six hundred and seventy two well-thought-out treats and toys that fit into a one inch-by-one-inch square space! (I didn't use a calculator, but I think I'm close.).

There is a LOT of pressure that comes with the responsibility of an advent calendar. And in case you are thinking that there is an easy way out but buying a very large case of holiday wrapped Hershey's Kisses and just popping them randomly into each box...YOU imagine the joy of opening your three-hundred-thousandth advent calendar box and finding another Hershey's kiss. What do you exclaim to show your appreciation?

"Oh look.......green. Thanks Grandma."

It isn't the price of what goes into each box. It's the thought. This year I found an itty bitty soccer ball magnet for my youngest boy and he loved it (one box down), and a little elastic-y bracelet with little holiday lights attached for my daughter (two boxes down), and a really nice tiny Yoda ornament for my oldest son (three boxes down)...and I've gotten all squeals so far.

So far...

But I admit that the pressure got to me this year. I had three boxes left to fill when I happened into Fredrick's Bakery in Amherst, New Hampshire. There, on the shelf were foil wrapped chocolate sports balls and they appeared to be about one inch in circumference so I bought two soccers and one basketball and brought them home. I was so excited to be done with my heirloom advent calendar filling for this year that I ripped open my Fredrick's bag and pulled out the chocolate balls and opened numbers twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five on my calendar and went to put the balls inside.

Too big.

I tried several different tactics including partially closing the doors to get the balls to go in.

No dice

I snapped.

I forced the three chocolate sports balls into their spaces (each made a sort of ‘pop' when it went in) and shut the doors.

I don't care.

I'm done.

Who knows what will happen when the twenty-third, twenty-forth, and twenty-fifth of December roll around this year.

I have a feeling that knives and screwdrivers may have to be called upon.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

Thanks for readin'.

Lisa