December Magic

Tomorrow it happens.  Tomorrow is the first day of December.  Tomorrow is when Magic happens.

My Dad made a 22-year commitment to the United States Air Force.  The United States Air Force made a commitment to my Dad:  send him around the world - and they did.  My earliest memories of childhood begin in Germany.  The year was 1972.  I got a baby sister for Christmas and fuzzy brown boots that had fur lining and a shiny gold necklace that hung from the branches of an evergreen tree freshly cut from the countryside behind our rental home.

One tradition that began all those years ago and has prevailed during the tenure of my life is the use of Advent calendars.  In Germany, my chubby fingers would open cardboard doors that kept squares of chocolates hidden in plastic molds.  Each door displayed the day of December it was to be opened.

These chocolate Advent calendars have been staples in the Elledge household since my girls were born.  Their tiny fingers would open cardboard doors as they ate the chocolate hidden behind each door ...  just like their mother and Aunt did before them.  Tomorrow, they will open doors once again.  Addison, in her own apartment, in her own town, on a different continent.  Parker and Libby here in our apartment in Vienna.

The girls will laugh as I pull them out.  They will eat the cheap chocolate found behind door #1.  But they will continue the tradition and hopefully pass it along to their children, my grandchildren.

It's no small thing in a life - the preserving of a tradition.  I have no idea if my 24-year-old Mom intended to create a long-standing tradition that I would carry into my adult years when she presented me with my first chocolate Advent calendar.  But she did.  And now my Christmases are marked by these .79 tokens of tradition.

Tomorow it happens.  Tomorrow is the first day of December.  Tomorrow is when Magic happens!
Christina