Decades ago, my mother-in-law Alberta Stornetta purchased an advent calendar in Denmark and a tradition was born. The calendar had twenty-four tiny rings to attach twenty-four tiny gifts. Alberta’s children, my children, and now my grandchildren have counted the days to Christmas by opening a tiny present each day in December. All the presents for 2019 were wrapped yesterday afternoon and it was Pop Pop’s job to get them tied to the calendar. When inclement weather prevented the grandchildren from coming for Sunday dinner, he postponed his task.
It is the first thing Adella noticed when she came in the house today.
“There are only six presents on the calendar, Granma,” she says.
“Don’t worry,” I reply. “All the gifts are wrapped. And you can help me put them on the calendar.”
No school today. It is a snow day. And I need her help to get them all up before the boys show up with her parents.
"Why do we always start with the youngest child?" she asks as she hands me a present for Max.
“Because Max is a baby. He can’t be as patient as you,” I reply. “Besides you get to have the special last present on Christmas Eve.”
Not entirely a satisfactory answer. But she drops the subject. I dread the day she figures out that I send her cousin Jim, an only child, twenty-four gifts, while she gets just eight because she has two siblings. On that day, I intend to argue that she gets double the presents because her parents also have a Christmas calendar. I hope that answer will satisfy her for at least a few more years, and that by the time her math skills advance to the level that she realizes she’s still at a net loss compared to Jim, she won’t care.
She moves on.
“I know what this one is,” she says. “It’s socks.”
I guess I am a little predictable, I think, as I tie them to the calendar. Target predictably has inexpensive Christmas socks at the front of the store. And I predictably shop at Target each year for very predictable Christmas calendar gifts.
“Oh, oh,” she squeals as she brings another gift to me to tie. “This one’s a gift card. Let’s put it up on the third, so I can open it tomorrow.”
Hmm, I think. That’s the first time I’ve given a gift card. Maybe it’s less about predictability and more about her ever improving ability to guess. And then I think she probably won’t be as as excited when she realizes what the cash equivalent is on the card. There was no Kristen Wiig at the Target counter when I purchased it. The salesperson stared at me unbelieving when I asked how little money I could put on a card.
“Granma, this one’s a chocolate Santa,” Adella says as she hands it to me.
I marvel at her tacticle skills. Guess she must have used a little logic as well.
“This one can’t be a chocolate bar or it would break,” she says as she hands me the largest present. Then she adds, “Oops. Guess it is a chocolate bar.”
In fact, it was Marshall’s chocolate bar. “We just won’t tell him. Perhaps he won’t notice,” I suggest as I tie it on.
“What’s this one?” she asks and I delight that I have finally stumped her. Perhaps it is interfaith confusion. It is Hanukkah geld, neatly stacked so I could wrap it.
At last, a present she doesn’t know. “I won’t tell,” I say. I am tempted to add a line from Santa in one of our favorite Christmas books, Santa Calls: “Some secrets are best left unsolved.” But I know this secret will be solved soon enough.
Then the boys jumble into the room, wet and animated from the snow. Adella and I rush to tie the last two presents on the calendar.
And I sigh. A sigh of relief because for the thirty-sixth year I have managed to tie twenty-four presents on the calendar lovingly made by my mother-in-law. But my sigh is also tinged with sadness as I realize that Adella, analytical and observant, is on the cusp of making discoveries. Discoveries that will change not only the nature of her Christmas futures, but also mine.
