Christmas come early...

Was I the only one to notice all the Christmas adverts on TV during the adverts in X factor last night? John Lewis and the like unashamedly advising us to spend our money in order to make Christmas a really special time? I can't have been the only person who felt a tad cynical, thinking about all the people who will actually find it very tough to buy presents this year, and for whom it must seem even tougher when faced with adverts like that. The only advert that resonated with me was the Asda one, not trying to sell people stuff they don't need. Just telling us that their prices for the things we do actually need are lower than their competitors. Enough said. Having said all that, my children completely love Christmas and are already 100% on countdown. I keep telling them it's only 20 days until Advent but they keep thinking there are only 20 days until Christmas. Whoops.

I remember before we had children I always thought I would make Christmas completely about the true meaning rather than just make it about presents (aka plastic tat). However when faced with the day to day pressures of parenting, I hope I am not alone in insisting there are "Santa cams" scattered around, Santa is on speed dial (8) on my phone, etc etc.

Anyway, in an effort to buy into it all, I wanted something a bit different for their advent calendars this year. Son 2 is soon to undergo a general anasthetic to have his front tooth out (he fell over and smashed it) so I thought it might be rather counter productive to give him lots of chocolate and sweets. I was pretty pleased then to spot some awesome Lego and Playmobil advent calendars where it seems that the whole point is to get enough pieces each day to eventually build something at the end of it. No sweets or chocolate, but hopefully lots of learning and fun times together too.

Here my boys are with their booty! They are now counting down to when they can start counting down, if you know what I mean.

Playmobil Advent Calendar for Son 2

Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar for Son 1!

The lego is available at Argos online here and it's pretty reasonable priced there compared to elsewhere. I'm actually starting to look forward to Christmas a bit more (see an older post about why I hate Christmas) as I'm looking forward to seeing what is in the Lego and Playmobil advent calendars. Happy days!