Yes, the title of this post is dramatic, but it’s the truth. It is what it is. I’m being held hostage, and today is Day Nine.
It started out with the best of intentions. I decided to walk through the Holiday Aisle at Target one day. It was a Monday. Claire was in her Young Preschoolers Class, and it was the perfect time to pick some things up and scratch them off of Santa’s List.
Candy canes? Check!
What else…what else?
Oh, look! A Christmas Countdown Calendar! How perfect! This would be something fun that Claire and I could do every morning. Find the day, open it up, see the picture and eat the little chocolate candy.
Awesome!
So, the calendar and my other purchases were hidden downstairs with the rest of the holiday loot.
It wasn’t until the afternoon of December 1st that I remembered I had the Countdown Calendar! I’d been chatting with one of my friends online, and she mentioned something that triggered my memory. How could I forget! Right after Claire’s nap, I got out the Calendar, and we found the little square marked “1″ and opened it up.
Claire was thrilled.
I let her eat the teeny tiny square of chocolate with the little picture imprinted on it.
She was beside herself.
And, then she wanted to open up the next one. TWO comes after ONE! Let’s open that one!
Uh, no. I mean, yes. Two comes after One, but we have to open it up on December 2nd. Tomorrow. We already opened up the one for today.
So?
Let’s open up Number Two Right Now!
What about now?
Or now?
Could we pretend that today is tomorrow and open up the next one now?
But, there’s chocolate in there!
Can we open it now?
Please, Momma, may we open up the next one!?
Such a polite little beggar. But, the answer was still no. Until the next day, in which she got to open up the next little door, and the begging started once again.
And, so began my captivity.
We’ve suffered through nine days.
Today is Day Nine.
ALL DAY.
It is NOT Day Ten.
Tomorrow is Day Ten.
No, we may not open up the next little box.
My husband got a kick out of my predicament…until our captor turned her sights on him. That’s when he looked at the back of the box and told me that a serving size was listed as 12 pieces.
Thanks, but you’re not helping! 
One a day! That’s the joy of the Countdown Calendar.
Can’t you feel the joy?
In all honesty, the irony of a calendar causing such frustration to a perfectionist who totally digs calendars is not lost on me, and that does bring me some joy…it’s twisted logic, but it is joy.
I was talking to my sister-in-law the other day on the phone and told her what was happening. I told her how I’d thought it was such a good idea! A little countdown calendar to make the holidays fun!
Wrong!
This was not what I had expected!!
She laughed and said that her childhood was full of memories of the countdown calendar and how she and her brothers would not only beg to open more than one door a day, but they would fight over who could open up the next window and who would eat the candy this time. So, it was good to hear that other parents have suffered before me and that I’m not alone.
I’ll tell you one thing, though. The Countdown Calendar is working. I can’t wait for the 25th to get here. In fact, it can’t get here soon enough.
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