My family has always used advent calendars to count down the days to Christmas. As I have mentioned before, my mother worked at Hallmark Cards for many years and our first advent calendars came from there. The early ones were simple paper calendars like this lovely number (which can be bought on eBay I might add):
Some years school fundraisers would offer the advent calendars with chocolate, but I always thought the chocolate tasted a little sketchy, so I wasn't a big fan of those.
When we moved to Germany in 2005 the tradition of the chocolate advent calendar came back around, but with sketchy chocolate removed...somehow their chocolate tasted better.
This is an advent calendar that we bought in Germany and carried with us from there to Kansas City for the holidays. We couldn't miss any days of chocolate!
Now we have added our children in the spirit. Here is our current advent calendar, which is even more sweet as you can put chocolate or small toys in each door. The first thing my son asks me every morning is if he can "do the train."
3 comments:
Even though I came from a German-American household, I had never had an Advent calendar until German relatives introduced my sister and me to them. We found the American version just as you said - more wax than chocolate. But then the German Aldi grocery stores began to set up shop in the US and real German chocolate was back. Hooray! I bought a super-sized one this year and so far I've only eaten one piece each day, even though I'm a chocolate addict. Wonder what will be behind tonight' door?
Kathy, I always keep an eye peeled for "real" German advent calendars. I hadn't thought of Aldi. Thanks!
I've always had a Advent Calendar and Advent Wreath. Now, we have kind of morphed the tradition in our household a bit. Each of my young children have their own hand made fabric Advent Calendar. Our Elf on the Shelf puts a treat in them each night for the specific date. Talk about changing it up a bit. I believe the Elf on the Shelf tradition is circa 2005!
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