chocolate advent calendars epitomize everything that is wrong with the world today

[emkana]

bit OTT non?

yeah, what sort of play areas in libraries?

We have a felt one with a nativity scene, a paper traditional one, and a chocolate one each for the DDs from Thorntons. And I won't be doing any different because of any Scroogey journalist's bright idea to fill her column one week.

Life's short, grab any pleasure you can - even, nay, especially! if it comes in the form of chocolate before breakfast in the darkest, coldest season of the year.

Agree with pumpkinsoup.

Still don't see need for chocolate.

Only like sparkly, nativity scenes.

All the more bucketheaded Christians might like to consider this: It's not actually your farking festival anyway. What little historical evidence there is suggests that the birth of the prophet/revolutionary leader named Jesus occured in March or something (or was it August, there does seem to be a different variation on this every couple of years or so). and 90% of the Xmas 'traditions' are Celtic/Roman to do with the midwinter festivals that most northern-hemisphere countries took to having quite early on in the history of human civilisations, because winter is cold and miserable and dark and there isn't much to eat, so why not have a party?

well said solid! Father Christmas and virgin births are all a load of myth and legend anyway, so why not add chocolate into the mix?

yawn

I know its petty, pointy dog, but I hate it when kids get there and only want to play with toys, just because there are so many. They love books! They rarely want to look at the books once there, even tho thats why they wanted to go - and its a very long trek to the libary and back! Surely libaries should encourage the enjoyment of books, not the dismissal of books. All the kids seem to do this, not just mine.

Don't all libraries have these huge toy areas taking over the whole of the children's book area?

Our main one is a nativity one. which I love. Don't mind our older falling-apart snowy paper ones though. So long as they are Christmassy! Ben 10 no!!!!!!!!!

But I have always wondered why some have 24, and some have 25 doors? And why are people concerned? would really like to know.

pumpkin - in the children's section at our library there are books, little tables and chairs where they can colour, these long soft squidgy shapes which they can sit on and i suppose play on them too (pretend to be driving a train etc) and one of those bead tables which i linked to below.

libby rocks

That sounds much better - couldn't get the link to work tho. But sounds much more appropriate!

pumpkin - do you know like the tables they have in doctor's sugerys? what does your library have then?

IMO, Purves is being more than a bit black-and-white about this. There is a continuum here, with meaningless cheap chocolate gorging at one end, and full-on chocolate-free piety at the other ? with tangents off it besides. The piety end isn't the (only) worthy place to be.

The atheists among us, of which I am one, probably have a different take on it altogether. As a family, we adopt (in our own way) several festivals (some religious, some not) throughout the year, and have many rituals of our own ? from sowing vegetable seeds and giving bunches of our daffodils to friends in the Spring, to picking our plums in August for jam-making, and harvesting our pumpkins in the Autumn. These rituals:

Bring family and friends together

Teach DS social skills with people of all ages, and manners

Teach DS about food, where it comes from, how to cook it, the growing season, organic gardening, sustainability, etc

Bring a lot of fun and pleasure into our lives and the lives of people we care about

Teach DS about the seasons and passage of time (gardening), history (Guy Fawkes), celebrated mystical characters from the past (Jesus), stories and other people's beliefs and giving and gratitude (Christmas)

DS's grandma buys him a bog standard Cadbury's chocolate advent calendar every year. It's a tiny part of this bigger picture, and good fun at that ? as motherinferior says. And it's helping get DS through the last few tired, Christmas-play-obsessed weeks at school. A child having a chocolate advent calendar is less of an issue than the wider backdrop of that child's life, IMHO. There is a kernel of truth in what Purves writes ? but I expect that the percentage of Veruca Salts among children who have a chocolate advent calendar, is nowhere near as high as she implies.

farkin hell libby.

what will you be getting for christmas? a bit of coal and a friggin walnut?

get off your high horse and have a big fat piece of cake.

no she will be getting and giving presents FOR CHRISTMAS.

Not for the whole of friggin Advent!

Sorry, what a ridiculous sensationalist piece of journalism.

My daughter has chosen not to believe in God for now(despite my own long standing beliefs)so a Christian nativity scene would be ridiculously hypocritical.

The little chocolate calendar brings her great joy, though. So long may it reign. And she's not in the least bit piggy, I can assure you!

We don't have a chocolate one but they have endless chocolate anyway - still getting through Hallowe'en stuff. I'd have a choc one if the chocolate was top notch. A lot of choc ones have cheap sugary stuff that barely deserves to be called chocolate.

I have failed on every level this year.

I wanted some sort of vaguely Christian/nativity theme to the calendar but couldn't find that with chocolate. Hey ho, bought the old-fashioned nativity scenes anyway, lots of traditional drawings and glitter.

BUT the pictures are sooooo dull, AND they're the same for each day in two of them, EVEN THOUGH the farking pictures on the front are completely different, so poor dd1 or 2 take it in turns to not be very surprised when they open their door.

So they're getting chocolate anyway

We like chocs in this house. Dd 5 and ds 2 each have their own choc advent calendar. Dd will select the correct date and each of them have their own. They are not allowed more than one, so teaches them self-control. It is a little treat for when they come home. Harmless.