The 1st of December started with a lot of excitement this morning. E and I were lying in bed chatting when she asked if she could use the iPad, so she ran downstairs to get it and moments later she ran up saying ‘Mummy, come and look there are presents downstairs’. We had put her advent calendars on the settee last night ready for her to discover in the morning. 
E would normally only get a chocolate advent calendar but this year she has been lucky enough to have received a Wow Toys calendar. The look on her face was sheer excitement, she first went to the chocolate calendar as she thought the box was a new toy, I explained to her how she can only have one chocolate a day which she was fine with, she hunted down number one and opened and munched very quickly a Father Christmas shaped chocolate. Then she went to the Wow Toys Winter Wonderland Calendar 
With great excitement she said ‘ look mummy, a new toy’. So then I had to explain how the toy advent calendar was the same as the chocolate one, how she would receive a new toy item each day and on Christmas eve she would have a whole set to play with. With great excitement she opened door number one to discover a jolly looking Father Christmas figure. 
She was very excited about this, she then went quiet and simply said ‘but mummy, I need to open the other doors so I can play with them all’, she looked really sad and then for a brief moment I wished I hadn’t given her a toy advent calendar. After a few moments she was fine with the concept and kept telling me where day two is and how she cannot wait to open it tomorrow. What I really love about the wow toys advent calendar is that it is aimed at pre school children and gives the opportunity for number recognition and counting practice. Once you have taken the character out of the calendar there is then a corresponding number on the pull down play scene telling you where to put the toy. E was very quick to find where Father Christmas was supposed to go. 
I placed the toy advent calendar on the kitchen table, I was surprised how big the calendar is and that was the only place I could put it at the moment. E was then very keen to sit at the kitchen table today, for breakfast, lunch, snack time and colouring in. She kept showing Father Christmas what she was doing, it was all really cute! As a whole the introduction of the advent calendars has gone extremely well, E hasn’t tried to open any of the other doors but she is very good at telling me which numbers are on the doors. I will keep you posted on the daily advent calendar excitement in our house.
