Doomed to repeat the sins of our mothers, uncles, whatever

The other day, as Emma and Gabe were adding something to our Nativity Advent Calendar (we have 4) I overheard this, through gritted teeth and with slitted eyes: "Ga-abe, you moved it!" Something in the ordering of the objects in the pockets, or on the scene, had been moved, and not to Emma's liking.

It took me back...

(Jessica 13, Matt 12 and Nate--with gold nose ring--5. Obviously the Three Wise Men, duh.)

When I was growing up, we had an advent calendar. It was a big felt Christmas tree, with 24 spots for the paper pictures that my mom had backed with felt and Velcro. Each night, as we put up the day's piece, my mom would read from a book that she had gotten with the original paper advent calendar. It would describe the meaning of each picture. There was an angel, a star, a donkey, all the usual pieces. The first day was a picture of swirly smoky darkness--symbolizing the darkness in the world before Christ was born. And this is where it all could go very wrong.

If this was the year that Matt (child #2, after me) went first...he would put the darkness at the top of the tree!!! Can you imagine anything so wrong?! I was able to appropriately influence the younger children and explain the sense in placing the darkness near the bottom, so that the star could be at the top, but Matt lived to irritate me. He would also not place the angel near the top--angels fly, right?so they need to be in the air-- and sometimes, ALMOST worse than the tree-topping darkness, he would not place the Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus at the central place above the trunk. Slight blasphemy, no? I would carefully count which child would be in charge of which day and try to arrange the rotation so Matt would not have control over pivotal pictures, but sometimes he would sneak and change them. It made me so mad.

The following picture, I'm happy to say, shows the advent calendar in correct placement. It also shows me, circa 1988 wearing my awesome new Christmas sweater, tight jeans and big bangs (you're welcome).

So, when I heard Emma's frustration, I was amused and sympathetic, but didn't become involved. This is a battle she needs to fight on her own. I still have to squelch the need to "fix" the advent calendars, when I notice a camel in the little drummer boy's place, but I seem to have passed the torch.

And, Matt, should you ever come at Christmas time...stay away from my star. And Gabe. He's obviously doing just fine on his own.