It is advent, so bring on the hockey

Note to self - on Boxing Day pack up the endless bits of Playmobil advent calendar and put them all back in the correct tiny boxes. How you will love your last year's self when you open the box on November 30, anticipating a big ole fiddly job, and find it all stacked away neatly. Flylady would definitely approve.

Yes it is advent, and this year we have the two calendars. We have the olde worlde gi-bleeding-normous wooden advent calendar given to us by my father - but on reflection, calendar seems too small a word. What about furniture? It took us about 15 minutes of wandering round the house trying to find somewhere with space enough to put it.

Then there is the Playmobil advent calendar with accompanying touching cardboard snow scene, in which a lone two-dimensional child gets to peer out of the window of a chocolate-box house as an exciting scene of rapture, gifts and ice hockey is set out before her over 24 painful days.

Yes, that's right, ice hockey. That famous British Christmas tradition. Opening the box reminded me of the first year we used this calendar when the Eldest Latte was four. It's perfectly fine opening the first box and finding a snowman - what's not to like? But as the days go on the boxes begin to contain items such as hockey pucks, which to a small child is like being given a dot to play with.

Watching their bemused little faces - it's magical. It's what advent is all about.