I ♥ Adventskalender

One of my favourite Christmas traditions is the Adventskalender. I guess it is a very German tradition since there seemed to be not even a translation into English.

So for those who know what an adventskalender is, please just skip this paragraph. For all the others: the idea behind the Adventskalender is to make the wait for Christmas a bit sweeter for all the big and small children out there. Therefore you are allowed to open a little present or a paper window on your Adventskalender filled with chocolate or a picture. It all starts on the first of December and finishes on December 24^th, Christmas Eve, because then we celebrate Christmas here in Germany. With presents, candles, too much great food and the like.

Picture found here

My late grandma always made fantastic Adventskalenders for us children. First filled with Lego and Playmobil – basically a big box spilt up in 24 little parcels. So we might get the Playmobil nurse on the first day, the hospital bed on the second and the patient not before the 15^th of December.  And since the parcels didn’t have any number (as opposed to traditional Adventskalenders where each parcel is attributed to a certain day) and we were allowed to choose which one we would like to open on the day. I can tell you, there was a lot of squashing and shaking going on before we would decided each day which parcel to take.

Picture found here

Later when we had outgrown Playmobil and Lego (though you never really outgrow the fun of these wonderful toys, I guess), she changed to riddles. They were quite difficult to solve in order to keep us excited for as long as possible and revealed in the end the ‘big’ present we got from her. The exciting thing was that we would get the big present as soon as we were able to solve the riddle. So there was a chance to get the big one before the siblings. And this bit of competition made it all the more thrilling.

In short: I LOVE ADVENTSKALENDERS...

... and I cannot wait to show you the one I made for my little one tomorrow.

I know it is mean to water your mouth and then say that you have to wait until tomorrow. But that is the anticipation that made my childhood Adventskalenders so exciting and unforgettable J