Like many children who grew itchy at time’s slow passage as Christmas neared, I liked our Advent calendar. In its presence, December’s dark days seemed a sort of tunneling toward magic, and as the calendar’s little windows opened, they lit the way.

My semi-religious grandmother had given the calendar to her somewhat-wayward son’s family, and in a first season I had memorized each window’s offering. Still, each year, until each window opened and its little painting appeared, the future felt like mystery.

Now, as I reopen each in memory, I realize that our calendar was refreshingly free of religious iconography, that most of the tiny paintings behind the doors showed birds, pinecones, trees and snow; our calendar was mostly paean to the world beyond our glass windows, and, during the short days of waiting for first snow and the 25th’s presents, that’s where I went to pass the time.

I had a little boy’s scattered attention, but I was also persistent, and soon I fastened onto an Advent “game”: each day, I would open the calendar window and then go outside to find the real version of what had been revealed. A chickadee, a pinecone or tree — that was easy. But if we’d not been favored by cold and cloud, snow could be a poser. For that, I had sometimes to make do with the heaped scrapings from a nearby hockey rink. Not exactly nature’s spawn, but they kept the game alive.

The reindeer asked for exemption. Everyone knew they were polar creatures unlikely to visit before late in the month. Here, I favored…and, to my mind, blessed our dog. Brownie was attached to me because I shoveled him snacks and talked to him, and because I had an outdoor habit of taking him along. So, when I spent some minutes fashioning a set of antlers, he sat patiently, waiting for what probably felt like a small humiliation. Once I’d secured “his antlers” to his head, we went out for a neighborhood walk, occasioning comment from any passersby and keeping my game intact.

That you could only open one advent window per day also kept time tugging at its reins. The fifth, as I recall, featured a Christmas tree, and sometime during that week, we too got our tree, which then spent the obligatory 48 hours in a bucket of sugar-water outside the backdoor before we made it gaudy with lights and tinsel.

Then, there was the 11th. Opening its door revealed the skater with the striped and wind-stretched scarf. That sent me to Rabbits Pond, where a cluster of us kids kept close watch for the season’s ice. And once it skimmed the pond, we wondered avidly when it would support us on our thin blades?

Each year, we had a test-kid; one year I was that kid. The skim had thickened … some, and, as resident little guy, it was my turn to edge out onto it and see…what happened. Flat on my belly, I squirmed out. The lens of ice flexed. And held. I squirmed some more. Then, I looked down. Through the clear ice and water to the intricate bottom. Oooo, a fish swam by; Ooooo, what another world you could see through that window. I was transfixed.

“Hey Stott,” I heard. “Stott, you bozo, what are you doing?”

Doing nothing, nothing doing; I kept quiet. This is just an amazing window, I thought. The older kids got bored and left. I kept watching. That window’s still open.

I no longer have that Advent calendar, but the habit of countdown remains, even as I’ve redirected my aim to Winter Solstice; I imagine little woodland scenes behind the door to each day; then, on daily forays, I go looking for them.

A few years ago, during December’s early days, I was meandering through a scrim of fresh snow at Crystal Spring when I came upon an unusual sight. About a half-mile in, along the Main Loop Trail, someone/s had decorated a 9’ fir to celebrate the season. Suspended on bright red yarn were art-hangings of the most delicate and sustaining kind. These maple keys, lichen bunches, leaves, birch-hearts, birch-bells, and pinecones, topped by a birch-star were a mix of surprise and beauty. Every time I passed through, I paused and wondered.

This tree, adorned with the leavings of other trees, seemed the perfect window into the season and the enduring gifts of the woodland world. Maybe it will be back this year.

Sandy Stott is a Brunswick, Maine resident, chair of the town’s Conservation Commission, and a member of Brunswick Topsham Land Trust’s Board of Directors. He writes for a variety of publications. He may be reached at fsandystott@gmail.com

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