Advent Calendars

I sliced my Collin Street Bakery fruitcake into 24 tiny little equal slices last December. I was going to use it as my own Advent calendar -- a short prayer of thanks and one slice of fruitcake to kick off my day from December 1st through Christmas Eve.

Fruitcake has a lot of calories, which I don't need at Christmastime, so dividing a fruitcake by 24 (I was hoping) would allow me to enjoy it without too much guilt.

Also, I have developed an allergy to pecans over the past several years. On Thanksgiving, I ate a big ol' piece of pecan pie, and my mouth was instantly on fire and my throat started to swell and close up. Collin Street Bakery fruitcakes are 20% pecans by weight, so I was hoping 1/24th of a fruitcake wouldn't send me to the emergency room. And, that's how much I love fruitcake.

We Catholics love our Advent calendars -- especially the ones with chocolate in them. Every morning, the first thing my kids did was run from their bed to their Advent calendars and eat their little piece of chocolate.

Now, my kids are grown, so we bought Advent calendars for the two little boys next door. My son has moved to Pennsylvania, and my daughter is off at college, so these boys are our "babies" now. We love these boys like they're our own -- just beam with joy when we're with them. We visited them the day they were born, and now they're starting to grow up, too. We miss them when we don't see them everyday.

When we gave the boys their Advent calendars, they loved them. They made great Frisbees in the front yard.