Brainstorms: Advent Calendar II: The Preparening

In typical fashion, my preparedness for upcoming holidays is a big jagged line of highs and lows. Let's start at the bottom. Thanksgiving is, like, forty eight hours away, and not only have I not done any shopping. My cookbooks, spiral notebook, and pen, are sitting on the living room coffee table, making sad trumpet music of failure at me every time I look at them.

However, at the tippy top of my super mom accomplishments is this year's Advent Calendar. I capitalized it because it has earned a spot in the list of traditions I attempt to cram into December. Only, remember last year, when I realized you actually have to start thinking of them in November? I didn't forget that this year. I got right on it about a week ago, because, not only did I want to have it finished by December 1st, I wanted to be able to share it with all the world well before then.

I decided to make the different units of the calendar hold the chocolate. Oh yeah, I also learned, just give them chocolate each time. Always learning here.

Our take on an amalgam of a million different kids craft idea sites all over the internet. Paper pyramid trees, a forest of them, full of candy, each waiting to be opened and harvested.

Here's how they started.

 It's like a triangle base, with three triangle sides, each of those sides having a little flap.

That helps sturdy the box corners.

We decorated them, numbered them, scored and folded them, punched holes at the top, stuffed them, and tied them shut. When you're doing 24 of anything, it's best to go as simple as possible. My mind could imagine all sorts of adorable embellishments, scraps of lace, buttons, magazine pictures, wrapping paper. They could look much more dolled up. We just used our stencils, stamps, fingertips and ink pads, with stickers and the occasional glued on dot from a hole puncher. Sometimes you have to let some things go and just plow through. Get her done, so to speak. I mean, there are springerle cookies to make, for goodness sake. Otherwise they won't be properly aged by the time we watch Sound of Music! (panting, wild-eyed)

Holiday Traditions: Sometimes they fill you with a love for the steady rhythm of time, like a song whose beat never fails; a song to which you are invited to add your own artful meaning, thus sharing a bit of what's inside you with those around you, and partaking in what they offer. This loving commune can be what makes life worth living. Other times, it can feel like, "OH NO! Christmas Eve is tomorrow and we never made those gingerbread Tardises I saw on Pinterest!! AND WHY HAVE WE NEVER GONE ICE SKATING AND THEN HAD COCOA?! This is when I take a deep breath and tell myself to move on. Enjoy finishing something, instead of spending forever making it just so. The little people in your life will benefit more from that light-heartedness than any clever craft activity.

Another variation on this idea is to fill the boxes with something other than candy. A small ornament or gift could fit in the box, which can be adapted to fit most anything. You could also stuff the trees with little slips of paper, saying that it's time to make a wreath with a parent, or read a seasonally-themed story, or play a favorite song from a CD, turned up loud, dancing around. As long as you mix it up and do something out of the ordinary, it should feel like a treat.

Only, don't intermingle candy and non-candy box contents. I learned that lesson the hard way. If it goes- Day. 1: Make a wreath, Day 2: CHOCOLATE, Day 3: Read  'Winter is the Warmeest Season" with Henry. Guess who hates reading books now? The kid who was really hoping for some candy. So pick one road and stay on it. We're stuck here, giving them chocolate every night, but it's not too late for you. Don't worry though, we're a merry bunch.  Rocking out to carols and making wreaths will happen, even if we are not commanded to do so by the little trees.

Brain Storms: Our Cracked Up Advent Calendar

This one goes out to all the baby mamas out there. You know this sharp clean little internet world, where the screen is bright, the spaces clear, and you can escape the cluttered imperfection of life?*
 This place is a web of lies! My blog included!

 * as long as you don't check your inbox.

Well, maybe the word "lies," is a bit much. I don't think it's intentionally misleading to put your best foot forward in life. To remove the cobwebs from one's hair and brush the teeth isn't exactly lying. It's courtesy. And most of what I'm talking about is that. In the world of blogging moms and momming bloggers, there's a bit of tweaking, a bit of fudging, to make sure that the whole world doesn't have to see the bedhead and chihuahua droppings. Unless you want to see that sort of thing, in which case, find another blog, sicko.

No, the lies are not being told to you by that reschooling stay-at-home bloggermom, with her 25 days of handmade organic nature solstice crafts, performed by angelic children who stare at one thing forever and never whine. They are in your own mind, being told to yourself! If you look at that blog, with its lack of sticky places and noise and think, "Well now I feel like dirt." you have a couple of choices.

 

Sure, you could get up, and do some of the stuff, sitting around you, waiting to be done. That's always a good approach. But the easier, pettier option would be to remind yourself that the online mom in question is hiding her imperfections, and is probably standing on checkers and doll clothes, yelling "JUST A SECOND!" upstairs to a kid on the toilet while she snaps that perfect shot of her rustic hand-hewn Legos. If you think she's any better than you at keeping an even temper, or a clean counter top, it's just because you are only seeing what she wants you to see.

Now, officially, I advocate the first reaction, in all areas of life. Proactive, productive, and just plain good for you. I employed it often when I got that familiar drowning feeling, looking at Advent calendars on Pinterest. Get up, dance with a kid, do some dishes, glue googly eyes onto something: the choices are endless.

The second approach, well, we've all done that; reminded ourselves that the people around us aren't as perfect as they would have us believe. And I'm about to surprise you, because I want you to do that with me. Spot the stains! Smirk smugly at the smudges! Revel in my short-comings, for they are many. I'm about to make it really easy too. I'm here today to share an idea for an Advent calendar. It's odd and fun, and way too late to do anyone any good for nearly another whole year! That, my friends, is how I roll. And it gets better. We didn't even get the Advent calendar made on time this month.

See, this family loves to anticipate a big date, and counting down with fun and candy just seems like an automatic win. So Advent calendars always caught my fancy. My friends have lovely ones, and I've considered making one according to one of the millions of adorable homespun ideas out there, but never even remembered they exist until sometime around the first of December. Then, with a Christmasy feeling just starting to motivate and inspire me a million different ways, the idea of squeezing in another project seems impossible, so we manage another year without counting down our December.

 

Four days into this December, I was telling Thomas about Advent calendars; their origin, and all of the variations on the idea. I ended up saying, "We need twenty four of something that we can put something in." which is when Thomas' eyes lit up and he said, "EGGS!" That was such a great idea, it didn't matter that we'd be almost a week late by the time it was implemented. We blew the contents out of twenty four eggs and marked their numbers with melted beeswax and a paint brush. The wax is clear and resisted the dye with which we were about to color the front of the egg. We set the blown egg, number side down, into a little dish of food coloring, water, and vinegar for a few minutes. Then, onto a dry towel. They sat on the woodstove afterward, to dry, and the heat helped melt away the beeswax, leaving a clear number. They were then strung up, but not before stuffing each egg with a rolled strip of paper. A button strung under the egg helps keep the string in place, and adds a bit of zazz.

All of the eggs were hung on our big Christmas tree, and each day, we broke one. Starting a week late meant that we enjoyed a major smashing of six eggs on our first night. Some papers read, "Make cookies with Henry," "Make a wreath," or "Watch the Nutcracker," but the favorite ones exclaim "CANDY!" and everyone gets chocolate.* Each day, a kid cracks an egg and we obey, slavishly eating our chocolate and celebrating together. It was great fun, and helped the younger two wrap their little minds around the remaining chunk of time between that present moment and the approaching Christmas morning.

 

I know we'll do it again next year, and maybe we'll even get it made in November!

*I learned pretty quickly that if this crew of mine didn't get chocolate each day, things would get riotous. So, in the interest of Peace on Earth and all that, I gave out candy whether the egg ordered me to or not. I also gained five pounds, but that's for another post.