The year before last when it got to November 30th I didn’t have an advent calendar. I remember putting Sam in his buggy and wheeling down to the bookshop and waiting for it to open at 11am (it was Sunday) and then buying the last “nice” advent calendar that they had. I wheeled him back via a flat white and a gingerbread man at Pret a Manger feeling like I had really, properly fucking lost it. I love Christmas, and yet December the 1st was, verily, the next day and I hadn’t bought an advent calendar??
Last year, I managed to buy in good time some extraordinary 3D thing covered in glitter, which Kitty was completely insanely in love with and wouldn’t let me chuck out.
This year, there is going to be a terrible thing with which child gets to open which door – with Sam not quite really grasping yet the thing about taking turns (though he’s getting there). So I have not only bought a massive 3D covered-in-glitter thing for my personal gratification (from Amazon) – I may even open every door myself and not allow a child near it – I have also bought each little weasel its own gaudy Cadbury’s chocolate advent calendar, something that we were never, ever allowed when I was small.
I know that sounds insanely spoiling but my children manage to fight over the most pathetic, tiny, petty things – who gets to turn off the telly at bath time, who’s in the bath first, who gets to fetch the newspaper off the mat, who’s going in the buggy – it’s just endless. One advent calendar between two would mean war. And at this time of peace to all mankind, that would be sad.
November 17, 2015 at 10:25 am
Oh yes, good plan. We used to have to share 1 advent calendar between 3 of us (with not a chocolate in sight as it was long ago in the dark ages before some clever spark decided that you need chocolate every morning to really overexcite already hyped up children!!!), the same advent calendar that came out year after year after year………… And my older brother always engineered it so that he opened the big door on Christmas Eve – and my little sister and I were too stupid to cotton on………
This year I’ve bought my boys chocolate advent calendars and sent them to them at uni :-)
November 17, 2015 at 11:03 am
Your children sound like mine. This year I’ve bought them each a German (no chocolate) calendar from After Noah – my mother in law always buys them a chocolate one each as well.
November 17, 2015 at 11:56 am
So glad mine aren’t the only ones to argue over the most petty things – sadly mine are older, 12 and 13 year old boys, who are showing no sign of growing out of it!
Also love that you have your own advent calendar – that is so me, can’t believe I have never got myself one – this year I am going to!! 🎄❄️☃
November 17, 2015 at 1:28 pm
Crap. I have 2 children yet just 1 calendar. And everything is a competition in our house with the 3 yr old wanting to be first at everything (having his lunch put down on the table first, me doing his seat belt first, him going up/down the stairs first) and the 1 yr old having no idea but will definitely scream the house down if he doesn’t get chocolate too. Back to the shops I go…
PS loving the new blog. Any ideas where I can get a nice, cosy plaid shirt that doesn’t cost £150 like the one I saw in Selfridges??
November 17, 2015 at 1:47 pm
TOPSHOP or Forever 21 – I have previously dismissed that shop as an awful, cheap craphole but I went in this morning and it’s actually got some good stuff xxx
November 24, 2015 at 5:40 pm
Sorry to butt in here – but… I got this plaid shirt recently and it is super. There are lots different styles if my choice doesn’t take your fancy. Warm and comfy and wash really well.
http://www.boxpark.co.uk/marketplace/catalogsearch/result/?q=pendleton+flanel+shirt
November 24, 2015 at 5:42 pm
I got the ‘favourite flannel’, if that isn’t obvious by the link.
November 17, 2015 at 1:40 pm
It has to be done! I was one of 4 and we managed to share a non-chocolate advent calendar as children and it worked out nicely 6 goes each. With chocolate the stakes are higher though. I bought one chocolate one a few years ago between my 3. I explained what was to happen to the littlest and despite her reassurance that she understood she cried and cried when she didn’t get a chocolate. I just buy 3 Cadbury’s now. All happy!
November 17, 2015 at 6:29 pm
We have twins who argue about everything, even the most minor of things. I feel your pain and frustration. When they were younger, less so now, other twin parents would initiate conversations and pass on stories. This one still in turns makes me smile and break out into a worried sweat. The twin mum in question said her boys insisted on having cornflakes every day for breakfast AND insisted that she count out each individual flake, one at a time, to ensure the appropriate division of flakes…
November 18, 2015 at 12:03 am
highly mental! but, the latent autism in all children is amusing.my favourite set of twins, Chris and Xand Van Tullekan are both doctors – they do operation ouch on CBeebies. Or is it CBBC. I’ve known them for years. they seem to get on famously
November 18, 2015 at 12:51 am
I used to share one with my older brother and on my days he’d always creep downstairs early, open the window with a kitchen knife (so it didn’t look opened), then when I came down to open it he’d whisper what was inside as I walked into the room.
We are all hideously spoiled this year- Lego and Tinc calendars for the children and a whisky calendar for my husband.
November 18, 2015 at 2:25 pm
I’ve gone Advent Calendar mad this year; Toot toot drivers calendar, customised dairy free calendar (limited edition, why?), a couple of chocolate calendars and this Melissa & Doug tree
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GJWTI0G/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_hOhtwbZPTG6W4
My boys are nearly three and eighteen months, I doubt they’ll give a shit…