on the first day of Christmas, Nanma gave to me…

One of the highlights from my childhood was my advent calendar. For everyday in December, my grandmother would give me (as well as her other practically 2 dozen grandchildren) a little gift. It wouldn’t be too much–a couple pencils, some stickers, some cute erasers, a hair barrette, etc. But, it would be all wrapped up with a tag with my name on it and which day it was for. I loved it and always looked forward to it as soon as Thanksgiving was over. Now, as a mommy myself, the fun has not ended. My mom has taken over the advent tradition. She made calendars for my kids (and all of her grandchildren) that look just like the ones we had. And, she fills them with gifts. And, these gifts, I will add, are pretty cool. Since she frequently takes trips to China, she gets lots of goodies there. No more gifts of a couple pencils. My kids’ favorite gift so far was a case with a fork, spoon, and a pair of chopsticks with either Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty on them. That’s pretty cool. So, anyway, we had our first advent mishap just moments ago. Drew and Ashlyn were whiney today, so up for a rest they went. Not 10 minutes later, Drew slinked downstairs to show me…a wind up frog. Hmmm…I’ve never seen that before…where did that come from? That would be from day 18. See the pictures for the evidence. Note that his gift today was the very cute boat which he was playing happily with. Well, now, he’s playing with it a little more happily since it has a frog passenger.

The first piece of evidence (besides him showing me the actual toy) – paper under his door

Ashamed of himself

The empty pocket for day 18

Happy to have a frog on board his boat