For the ones who celebrate Christmas, today begins the Advent Calendar. It’s the time of preparation for the big feast of December 25th.
When we were kids, we had an Advent Calendar, different each year. It was a structure of colored cardboard, decorated with Christmas motives with the dates drawn on windows you opened on the given day. Inside each window, there was a surprise.
We used to try to do a kind thing each day to deserve the surprise and prepare ourselves for the day of Christmas. You have to be a good kid to receive your presents!
In the beginning, the calendars were very simple, and inside each window, there was only a drawing. But for us, it was always something magical. Later, the calendar hid candies and chocolates.
It was exciting because you were experiencing the approaching of the big day and playing and praying together with your siblings and your parents. Yes, we, every evening, gathered around the calendar to open the window of the day and to talk with anticipation about the approaching feast.
Then we worked together making the Christmas ornaments with we will transform our house in a fantasy of lights and green branches on Christmas Eve.
That day we all worked hard to have everything ready at Night. My father was building the Nativity scene under the tree while we decorated the rest of the house, and my mom was busy in the kitchen. That day we opened the only remained window of our calendar the biggest of all.
The big Night had arrived.