Opening door 9

When I was a child, before confectionary manufacturers had started using Advent to sell more chocolate, we had an Advent calendar in the dining room window, with a nativity scene and little doors which each day revealed a picture of a Christmas related item, with the light shining through the paper. My brothers and I took turns to open them, and at primary school there was a class one which a different child opened each day. I don't remember how children were chosen for this honour, as there were more children in the class than doors in the calendar, but I know that on the last day of term we would open all the remaining doors until Christmas.

J's childhood started with traditional Advent calendars too, but it wasn't many years before she was seduced by the lure of Woolworth's marketing of Teletubbies in Santa hats or, later, S Club 7, concealing a very small chocolate for each day. I didn't object to the chocolate but I hated the gaudy pictures of the current crazes. For quite a few years now she's had a wooden tree full of little drawers, which she painted and decorated with S. I fill it with treats, increasingly indulging her penchant for Lindor balls, two of which fit neatly in a drawer. 

Over the years I've sometimes bought my own calendar, but since we moved to Kent my lovely friend W from Durham has often sent me one. This one arrived on 1st December, and I enjoy seeing what the day's door will reveal when I come down for my morning cup of tea - a quiet moment of nostalgia and appreciation of friendship.