December 1st

And the advent has begun. I don't know how the rest of the world celebrates this, or if you even do at all, but in Norwegian it's an unbreakable tradition.

The whole thing is that when December comes, the Christmas month has started. We have calendars that you either buy in shops, you buy a part and make your own 'presents' or you make it all on your own. At school children all bring one present, and then they're put up somewhere. We made a calendar the first year of school, with rings hanging at the bottom to tie the presents to. It's not a calendar as such, the advent calendars has 24 numbers on them, 24 days till Christmas as here we celebrate Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day.

I can't live through December without a chocolate calendar, it's a cheap little cardboard thing you get at some shops, but it has to be this exact one because ever tiny piece of chocolate just.. well, tastes like advent. I opened the first one today and there was a picture of a little train on the first one. I also put clove (?) things into an orange, they're whole instead of powder and you have to be careful when you put them in. You put 24 of them in there and you take one out every day, the last one on Christmas Eve.

I've also bought one of those tiny flowers, I'm not sure what they're called in English, you can buy a big one or a small one and they're called Julestjerne in Norwegian, Christmas star. My parents have bought a little one for each of us kids the past two-three years and since I'm living on my own now, I bought one to put in my window next to the orange. Take a look here. That's the calendar, orange and flower.

Might sound like there's a lot of buying involved, and in a way there is. But, amazingly, all these little things that hold the fondest memories are the cheapest things you can buy. An orange and some spices to put in it (smells wonderful too), a $1.50 chocolate calendar and a beautiful little red flower. Of course you could buy other kinds of calendars and lots of stuff to put in them each day. Christmas may have become commercialized, maybe it seems like it's all about buying, but I say it's about traditions. Before you have any, or if you don't start any, you don't know what to do and you might run around like a headless chicken buying anything and everything in sight. But if you realize that the little things matter the most, and make it about those things, then no one can that that away from you.

I really really think I must be growing up here...