Christmas in November

One of the best Scandinavian Christmas traditions is the so-called advents calendar. Despite this name in English, it is in fact a daily calendar where we count down from December 1st until christmas eve: December 24th. It comes in many shapes and types, chocolate calendars, present calendars and some with just pictures. However, a stable one in each Scandinavian home is also the calendar candle. It has a series of numbers running down the side and is often decorated prettily in tasteful colors.

This year I will not be home for most of December. I am going to Paris (bringing Zoe) and flying directly to China (without Zoe), landing back in Stockholm 19th and possibly going to Denmark the 21st (bringing Zoe). Instead of using the calendar candle for December I then had the brilliant idea to use one in November. Zoe will be able to learn numbers and instead of counting down to Christmas we are counting down to our trip to India. We leave on the 23rd and I bet that a two and a half year old has a hard time distinquishing between 23 and 24 anyway. I bought a very nicely decorated calendar candle yesterday (and an ornament for Zoe, shaped as a drum, she did not want to leave the shop without) and we have started countdown. Zoe meticously lights it every day watching that she doesn’t burn her fingers, which she did once and therefore never will again. Only 19 more days to go.