Advent Calendars

It’s the end of advent calendars as we know them in our household.

Next year I won’t be lured through the eyes of my children by the enticing pictures on the front but will remember instead the monsters they became from the chocolates within.

What I didn’t count on when making the purchase was three kids, with greedy glints in their eyes, sprinting into my room at 5.45 every morning clutching said calendars.

“Which one Mummy?” the twins ask, referring to which number can be opened that day.

I hold it up to the light, blearily trying to locate the number while they clamber on top of me.

They then wave their sculpted chocolate for identification in my face, insisting no one but the owner touch it, before popping it in their mouths with great satisfaction.

Yes, I know – chocolate before breakfast is disgusting and I quietly cringe every morning. But I slipped up by not setting the ground rules from the start and, quite frankly, can’t be bothered dealing with the fall-out before 6am.

One day Miss Four came bounding up the stairs to inform me her brother was eating all his chocolates. I didn’t believe it at first but, upon inspection, sure enough, there he was licking his chocolate-covered chops after gutsing down five in a row. And he would’ve kept going had he not been busted.

As a result his calendar was confiscated for five days and Master Four had to be on his best behaviour to earn it back.

Then, low and behold, sometime later Miss Four discovered that numerous chocolates from her advent calendar were missing.

Her brothers swear it wasn’t them and, try as I might to slip them up by grilling them – detective-style - “When you ate your sister’s chocolates, was one of them the bell shape?”- they maintain their innocence.

The jury’s still out on that one - it seems the chocolates have gone truly awol.

So I’ve warned them I’m pulling the plug on chocolate calendars next year. Instead I will do what several of my friends have done and create an advent calendar a little more like the original.

Behind the windows will be a range of activities, including baking Xmas cookies, watching a Christmas movie, going on the Christmas lights trail or doing a good deed for others like donating toys to the Salvation Army. Not only is it teaching them the art of giving, but it’s spending quality family time.

Hopefully it reiterates the real meaning of Christmas and they take to it with the same enthusiasm they have the chocolate calendars. If not, then I’ll need to come up with another bartering tool. The “Santa’s little elves are watching you” reminder seems to have lost its impact this year but the threat of taking away their chocolate advent calendars has worked a treat.