
('Dad, I'm too old to believe in Rudolph anymore!')
And there we are again: It's the first of December and thus the beginning of the Advent calendar giveaway 2012. I am amazed at how fast time goes once you've entered your thirties. Wasn't it so much longer and slower when we were little?
Today, while walking through the streets of Berlin in a grey drizzle, but marveling at all the decorations (more or less tasteful) and lights in every window, on the balconies, in the shops... even in the pharmacy, I thought that only the very young and the very old enjoy the Advent time as it should be enjoyed: With a lot of time and leisure at their hands.
I remember that when I was a small child I had hours (or so it felt) to look at and read books about Christmas. I dreamed of gifts I would receive and give, we would bake cookies, sing Christmas songs on Sundays... and every morning we would open another little door in our advent calendars, finding a piece of very bad but oh-so-sweet chocolate behind it.
I only opened one little door each day but I know that my brother had opening them up, eating all the chocolate and closing them again so that nobody would see down to an art. ...It's a matter of style. And of patience, I guess.

('The maternity clothing is beautiful this season. Don't you think?')
Now that we're all grown up it seems there's never enough time in a day, especially before Christmas, so many things to be done, to be organized, to be talked about... so many places to go, people to remember...
And one thing I do remember, every year, is the advent calendar giveaway here on the Lineanongrata blog.
Over the next 24 days (we Germans celebrate Christmas on Holy Night, on the 24th of December) there will be 24 posts here. Something unprecedented in about two years, I know. I'll be talking about my 'change it' list for 2012 later this month.
Every day for 24 days I'll be giving away a gift to one of you. All you have to do is leave a comment every day and you'll automatically enter the giveaway. Every day I'll draw one name, ask one of you for your address and send something your way. Via 'Real snail mail'. Because Advent is about looking forward to something, even though most of us don't have a lot of time to be calm and contemplative during the coming days and weeks.
(...The illustrations are the last two of the calendar that you haven't already seen. Or at least the December drawing you hadn't seen before. I changed the chicks since last I showed them to you so I thought you might want to see the final version.)