Look, I don’t know who invented advent calendars but truly, it’s just a horrible idea.
My mom gave Mr. Professorpants his first ever advent calendar. He was 3 at the time. Now, I’m not sure what your adult willpower is like, but I’ll wager that a you can roughly halve that and then halve it again to estimate the willpower of a 3 year old.
My mom patiently explained to a 3 year old Mr. PP how it works. Feeling proud that she’d done a good job at clarifying Advent Calendars 101, she left the room. Mistake number one, or should I say mistake number two. Mistake number one was buying the bloody calendar in the first place. Things got real quiet in the room and 10 minutes later, Mr. PP came out with a chocolate moustache (and beard for that matter). Upon investigation, we saw that we were already on the 20th of December.
Luckily, there weren’t actually 20 chocolates missing, but rather that only 5 had been consumed – just not in the correct date order you understand. (Dates? Really? Dates for pre-schoolers?) For a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of parent like me, I considered it a triumph that there were any chocolates left at all.
My mom, on the other hand, was horrified. Don’t your kids understand the virtue of delayed satisfaction, she asked? Um, that would be a definite no. I hung my head feigning shame, whilst wondering if I could nick a few choccies myself and blame it on the kid. Come to think of it, surely the whole phrase ‘delayed satisfaction’ is a bit of an oxymoron?
Perhaps I should point out at this stage that the date wasn’t even the first of December. Its was mid November. I just knew that there was not a hope in hell of trying to stretch out this bloody calendar till the 25 December and wondered how many calendars we'd make our way through before Christmas day.
Apparently, its a nutritional no-no to start the day with a sugar rush. My mom said that Mr.PP should have breakfast before attacking the calendar. Of course, I sagely agreed, wondering how on earth I’d prevent the Dawn-Chocolate-Attack (considering that Mr. PP is up and eating before I’ve had a chance to formally exit Lala-land.)
Eventually (grasping a straws now) I said to my mom, (in what I could only hope was an accusing tone) “Well what did you say to him? I mean how did you explain it?”
Then she said, “I told him that he must have one every day until they’re finished and then when they’re finished, it’ll be Christmas day”. You see, that’s where she went wrong. He just thought that if he ate them quicker, then Christmas would come sooner. Mother of mother, I mean honestly, you'd think she’d know better.
P.S. Consider this a warning, if you’re pre-menstrual, that advent calendar is toast.
P.S.S. If you think the advent calendar thing went badly for Mr. PP, times that by 10 for TooFastTooFurious.
