Advent calendars

Here's the advent calendar I can't wait to throw away (in fact, already have) because it's been destroyed by Tommy and gives him a sugar high each day:

Here's the advent calendar I LOVE, sent by Grandma Nancy. Each day is an ornament to decorate the tree with -- and I'm going to keep it for next year (though I'm not sure we can use it again, it will just be a decoration).

Here's a cute story from this morning. Tommy and I wrapped Eli's gifts yesterday and put them under the tree. Before Eli went to work, we had pancakes, and as I was mixing them up, Tommy told Eli to come in the living room, "I got somethin to show you, Dad!"

He then pointed to a box under the tree and said, "those are your new shoes!" And Eli said, "well, you're not really supposed to tell me what's in there, honey." And Tommy said, "oh. [pause] what's in that box?"