ADVERTORIAL
The Christmas Countdown My Grandkids Actually Look Forward To
Glenn V. kept his grandchildren's capsule advent calendar at his own house last December. Every evening after supper, the two of them came down the street to open one capsule and build what was in it.
Estimated 5-minute read
Our son's family lives four houses up the street from us, and last December the reason his two kids walked over every night was a box on our kitchen counter.
My wife, Barb, ordered a Bricktide Capsule Advent Calendar for the kids and asked Heather, our son's wife, if it could live at our house. Heather was all for it.
It's an advent calendar built like a capsule machine, with 24 capsules behind a window and the bricks for one small Christmas build in each.
You turn the knob and a capsule comes out at the chute, and the kids open it at the kitchen table and build what's inside. That's 24 days of surprises instead of one, with a different build in every capsule.
The store's picture shows one opened.
That December our two grandkids built a little Christmas scene for our sideboard, and Barb and I got to watch it take shape.
"Can we open one today?"
The tree lights in our front window are on a timer, and they had always just come on when the two of them walked into our kitchen, straight from supper at our son Jason's.
"Can we open one today?"
Lucy was ten and Milo was six. They knew the answer. They asked ANYWAY.
If the box had gone home with them on the first of the month, I'd have seen the builds on Christmas Day, finished. Keeping the Bricktide™ Capsule Advent Calendar on our counter meant 24 evenings with those two.
December is a long month when you're six.
Our grandkids were still counting down to Christmas. Now they were also counting down to the next capsule.
A handful of bricks
The knob was Milo's job. He turned it, the capsule came out at the chute, and he carried it to the table in both hands.
Inside was a handful of small bricks. Not an ornament to look at and set down somewhere.
The snowman was in one capsule and the reindeer in another. The little train was Milo's, because he called it first, and Lucy hasn't entirely forgiven him. Over the month we also had a Santa, trees, gifts, a wreath and a fireplace, and some I'm leaving out.
Each one is small. The finished snowman sat in my palm, and none of the others was much bigger.
Every capsule was something to build, and by the time they went home it was a thing they'd made.
Around the table
There was nothing to set up. Barb poured each night's bricks onto a dinner plate so the small pieces wouldn't roll off the table.
The kids built and we found pieces. Lucy took the tiny ones and Milo the big ones, and when a piece went under the stove, one of the grown-ups fished it out with a yardstick.
On weekends Jason and Heather came down too and stood behind the chairs with their coffee, so there were six of us around one capsule.
Each build belonged to whoever had called it before the capsule opened, so every night the new one got held up against the other kid's best. Milo's train against Lucy's reindeer went on for most of a week.
On the night the tree came out, the yellow star was the LAST piece, and Lucy let Milo put it on.
It never took more than one capsule and our kitchen table, and none of it had to be planned.
Two rows deep
The finished builds went on the white runner Barb puts on the sideboard in December. Lucy arranged them.
The train went in front and the snowman stood by the brick tree. The little fireplace went at the back, against the wall.
Each night's build went in next to the last one, and by the end there was a second row and it looked like a TOWN.
Most evenings Milo ran the train up and down the runner and put it back in front before he went home.
Some of the same builds are set out together in the picture below, the tree with its yellow star among them.
In February, Milo was over at our house and pointed at the reindeer on the sideboard, and he didn't say "that's the reindeer." He said "that's the one where Grandma found the antler under the stove."
A month-long present
We've bought those two plenty of presents, and this is the only one they asked us about every evening for a month. There was a new build in it each night, 24 in all.
The store draws the whole set as a grid, one build to a circle.
Some Christmas gifts make children happy for a little while. Others give the whole family a daily reminder of the time they spent together.
Lucy has already put in her claim for the knob this year.
Sitting in on the build
Four houses away
The Amoroart™ Bricktide Capsule Advent Calendar doesn't have to live where the kids do.
Twenty-four capsules in one box for $49.99.
The yardstick is still beside our stove.
"Last year my daughter was six, and she wanted me across the table watching while she built. Halfway through the month she started guessing what was inside as I passed her the capsule, and she was right twice. The wreath fooled her completely."
"I live with my daughter's family, and last Christmas the advent calendar became something I did with the kids. I got the capsule out while they washed their hands, and then the three of us built it together. It was the one part of the day my twelve-year-old grandson and I sat at the same table."
"My son is an only child, so last year the capsule was what the two of us did while dinner was in the oven. He was nine. I learned to keep my hands in my lap, because he wanted to put in every piece himself and tell me about each one as he went."