Christmas 2011 : Our Advent Calendar

Gramma Mindy was nice enough to get me something very cool for this holiday season....an advent calendar!

Wikipedia's delicate, flowing prose informs me that An Advent calendar is a special calendar which is used to count or celebrate the days of Advent in anticipation of Christmas. 

Sometimes candy or other gifts are involved, where you would get a candy or gift each day, and sometimes you are just opening the little doors on the calendar to see a picture or something...in this case, Gramma Mindy got something very cool and very unique...she got me a pop-up Eric Carle advent calendar...he is the guy has done books like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and one of my old favorites Brown Bear, Brown Bear....What do you See? The calendar is gorgeous, and very well-designed...when you open it, it has a pop-up tree, pop-up Santa, and pop-up boxes for putting the presents in...

Basically, you open the little doors, one per day leading to Christmas, and you either get an ornament (which you hang on the pop-up tree) or a gift (which you put in one of the gift boxes)

Mom and Dad let me open the doors myself, and pull out the little gifts myself, too. I have pretty much decided that all of them are going in the gift boxes, regardless of whether or not they are technically gifts or ornaments, but I am still having a lot of fun opening the little doors and counting down to Christmas with Mom and Dad!

On a side note....I got a little over-zealous and already opened the 25th....Mom heard me say "Ooooh, a star!!" and she turned to find me getting a little ahead of myself....

We drive up to Connecticut tonight to spend Christmas with our family, and I look very forward to bringing the calendar with me to finish up the last few days. Thanks for the fun gift, Gramma Mindy!!