Advent
Calendars
Advent calendars are one of those things I pause to look at on the shelves every year and consider buying for the CWM. and every year I pass on them. The reason why: I bought the two calendars you see in this gallery long, long ago... probably early 80s... and they really offered me no satisfaction in storing them and hauling them around over the decades as clunky, hard-to-store, poorly-constructed pieces of cardboard with little-to-no aesthetic or humor value.
That being said, I'm now thinking about buying some more! Now that a gallery devoted to the advent calendar is now online, it just seems to beg for newer, better, or hopefully worse examples of the genre. In the meantime, you can feast your eyes on these two lovely calendars from Trader Joe's. This "Bedroom Santa" calendar offers a slightly-disturbing tableau with angels (didn't know they came along for the ride) helping him place kittens and gifts in sleeping children's beds.
Just for fun, you can click here to see the back, where you can see how this art pre-dates all the requirements for bar codes and Nutritional Facts labelling. The manufacturer's solution was to simply cover over the art, including key elements of the maze game that children were supposed to enjoy. Gee, thanks, Santa!
