der Adventscalendar

germans put a whole new twist on cutting, i mean, on COUNTING the days leading up to Christmas.

yes, they still have the advent calendars where you open a little window each day and inside is a little picture or a tasty chocolate. but more exciting for Kinder here are these babies like you see above (not all look just like this--some are wreaths or garlands and have gifts hanging from them). our friend anja handmade these for the kids--each is a little guardian angel. precious.

basically each day you get to open a tiny gift. see where jose's WAS? guess why we had to move it after the 1st day? well, he just didn't understand why he couldn't just keep opening more and more...thankfully we caught him in action and he only tore two off :) sweet guy

after we cut them down, the kids sit down and open their daily treasure. they've had chocolate, gummi bears, marzipan...and when you get older you can get other types of gifts--but for our guys she just made it with sweets...anja still does this for her 17 year old daughter

i think this is grace's favorite part of the day. when we mention that it's time she quickly becomes all smiles and says "open presents for jesus' birthday?"

then they both happily munch away. jose usually devours his in seconds and grace is interesting...she eats her treats very slowly. sure, prince has tried a few times to steal hers while she's in mid-bite, but we're onto his antics.

guess how many days left til christmas???

the kids are enjoying every bite of this new tradition.
danke schon liebe anja!

*postscript: a few hours after i posted this (while the kids were napping), the kids were awake and playing. at one point buddy, jose and i were in the living room. we all of the sudden realized that grace was not, and was suspiciously quiet. going to see where she was, look what i found her doing...standing on a chair: