I got my advent calendar the other day and I thought, “what better way to share the build up to Christmas than to post on my blog about the pictures behind each window?”
I got my camera and calendar ready and took a photo of the advent in it’s virginal state.
I popped the door, ate the chocolate and what did I find behind it?
Absolutely nothing! Kinder can’t even be bothered to stick a picture behind the chocolate. Looks like the Kinder surprise was on me. What to do? I decided that I would head into town and buy and old fashioned calendar that only had pictures.
After tramping around town for a while I discovered that it’s very hard to find an advent without chocolates. I’d imagine giving a child a calendar without chocs would be enough to get them a reputation at school that would last until they left. “Oh look it’s no choc Charlie, his mom can’t afford sweets, I heard it’s not his real mom, she died trying to fish a mars bar out of the canal. Eurgh he’s got nits and everything.”
Fortunately I had fail-safe plan. There is a newsagent in town that also does a sideline in religious books, CDs etc. If there’s one thing the God-botherers don’t like it’s kids enjoying Christmas. Not when there’s good remembering about Jesus to be done. My plan was a success, I had a choice of two guaranteed not to have chocolates. One looked very promising, offering not just a picture but also a bible verse behind each window. These would have to be very small bible verses as the windows were very small. However it’s easier for a whole verse of the bible to fit behind a tiny windiw than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.
The second one only promised pictures but it had one big advantage.
Let’s take a closer look at that top right corner.
Oh yes, the first day of December and already it’s reduced from £1.25 to 10p. This was going to be a good one. I felt bad paying only 10p so I bought a drink at the same time. I would have been about seven the last time I went into a shop and spent only 10p.
I got home and opened it to find it also came with a large envelope just for those relatives that only vaguely remember children so send them crap every year. The sort that buy 10 year-olds brut or book tokens or that illustrated book of bible stories that sits on the bookshelf in case Satan or that auntie visits. I wasn’t sending this calendar anywhere. This advent is for you.