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

[emkana]

bit OTT non?

My kids have got Lindt Advent Calendars - I don't give a toss what Libby Purvis thinks about it. They are 13 and 16, so a bit old to be looking at pictures - but I used to buy them the old fashioned ones when they were little because small children enjoy looking behind the doors.

The first comment after the article made me laugh from Daley in Oban that Chocolate Advent Calendars "epitomise all that is wrong in the world". After the massacres in Mumbai and the atrocities in the Congo please, give me strength.

Well the tree isn't up yet and I have better things to do than make expensive crap that won't turn out as well as something I can buy from a shop. Frankly there is no way I would give DS a chocolate at breakfast unless it was in an advent calendar, that would be wrong.

you all need to check out my profile for my dc's advent picture

bet it WINS the most 'bizarre' advent picture ever prize

I've had a charity goat from a friend - regrettably I didn't get to name it - but tbh `I was perfectly happy for Oxfam to benefit rather than be given a piece of jewellery/bath salts tat.

no, we got a lovely sparkly glittery calendar in Borders. Each morning we guess what the pretty piucture will be. We loves it.

We do not watch one person bung a bit of chocolate in their gob. Anyone who wants can have a tree chocolate in the evening.

And what's with buying more than one advent calendar? Wy do that

Pointydog - DD has 2.We got her the Playmobil one. My parents got her a chocolate one - why? Because they wanted to, DD like it and I have no problems with it.

I larve that picture NaO

The dog has a look of gay abandon

LOL NAO!

a pissing dog, otter?

(ah, and the fake plastic wearing me down was sort of quoting that rasiohead song. Talking about plastic makes me think of that song. Not very comprehensible)

haha that's fab otter

can you get me one for next year?

aw my ds gives the chocolate to which one of us he likes that day

if someone else bought the dds an advent calendar, I wouldn't mind. But the parents who buy more than one is odd. I suppose it's only because small children can't stand seeing a sibling get a piece of morning chocolate when they get rice krispies.

Yes, I want to know if Hecate has come to a decision yet about whether to be a good parent or allow chocolate in her children's lives. Hecate?

i am very puritanical

i DELIGHT in my children ALL getting exited about a drawing behind a door

It's not the chocolate. It's the aesthetics. And the pleasure to be got from pretty pictures.

Love the dog Notanotter!

Hmmm interesting points about the hot chocolate and pain au choc. Yes you can have them for breakfast, I do agree. Just not actual chocolate. (What a total hypocrite.)

Tangentially, I decided to give several goat-esque charity gifts (alongside smaller actually pressies) this year and settled on the ones that buy homeless people toiletries packs and phone time etc. But DP banned me from giving that to his super-posho Torygraph-reading mum! She wouldn't approve apparently. He racked his brains and said it might be ok to adopt a fluffy animal for her. Luckily the homeless charity brochure had a "feed a homeless person's dog" option which I proffered. Nope - homeless dogs can fuck off too.

likin your style snowleopard but then i knew that already

i try to draw the line at pain au - at breakfast time

just croissant...

hot chocolate -treat or cold days only

yeah, I don't like unrequested charity gifts.

And choc advent calendars usually don't have pictures inside as well. The innards are all bashed with trying to invert a piece of plastic to get a poor quality piece of whey and soldis out

It's a bit presumptious to ask for a specific gift though isn't it? Which rather rules charity gifts out altogether among the well-mannered.

Mutt you could say that of ALL GIFTS surely?

every winter day is a cold day

I didn't realise the Times was supposed to be entertaining now! Perhaps I'll have to read it more often!!

all my familyy and the in laws hve got to the stage of asking what everyone wants for a present. It makes sense, in a way, but it's not what a gift is meant to be.

I wish that adults didn't bother buying each other chroistmas presents at all.