Twenty-Four Days of Temptation

On a very long ago December first, I was summoned to my mother's room and shown a needlepoint Advent calendar with tiny wrapped presents tied to little plastic rings that denoted each day until Christmas Eve. I was allowed to clip off the first day's present with a small pair of brass scissors. It was a Santa pen with a little window along the shaft, through which I could see Santa's sleigh and reindeer. Snow fluttered when I tilted it up and down.


"You can open one each day," my mother explained. I knew she was leaving for Florida with my grandmother for a few weeks, and the promise of a present a day would help lessen the sting of her impending departure. I loved presents.


After she left, I busied myself making gifts for my parents under the firm hand of my "nurse," Arnie, who drank tea of an afternoon, and let me come into her room on Sunday evenings to watch Bonanza and part of the Ed Sullivan Show.  I made a multi-colored potholder from loops stretched across a loom for my mother and a faux leather comb case for my father, who was mostly bald. We decorated my bedroom with paper chains and crafted a Christmas tree from pipe cleaners with miniature Christmas balls stuck on the ends of the pipe cleaner boughs. A sign proclaiming "Merry Christmas" stretched across my mirror.


But, the allure of the Advent calendar with its many gifties in varying shapes and sizes trailing from the wall outside my mother's bedroom was too much to resist.


By Day 3, I was feeling each package. By Day 4, I was gently peeling aside the scotch tape and peeking inside. By Day 5, I had unwrapped Days 6, 7, and 8 and was searching for glue to paste them back together. By Day 9, Days 10, 11 and 12 dangled unadorned, the wrapping paper secreted in my closet.


On Day 13, a postcard arrived from Florida.


Dear Amy,
Remember that Santa knows if you've been naughty.
Try to be good.
See you soon!
Love, Mummy