A few years around this time I went to Germany to give a talk at a symposium in Frankfurt a.M.. It was a typical cloudy fall day when I arrived at my hotel at 8 AM. My room was not ready yet. After a coffee in the hotel lobby, I decided to explore the shopping center across the street. Just as I entered the mall, I saw a dm-drogerie markt, a type of drugstore that has become one of my favorite shopping destinations in Germany over the past years. Among the many Christmas goodies, I found an advent calendar that made my language-loving heart jump. Instead of chocolate, it featured 24 doors with books (Pixi-Bücher) in it. Even though the calendar was quite big to the extent that it would not fit into my suitcase (and yes, it did not), I bought it. Needless to say, it was quite an adventure to carry it through airport security and onto the plane back to the U.S.
But it was worth it.
Instead of candy and trinkets, my daughter got a new Pixibuch each day. So we were able to read a new story in German every night at bed time. With Covid around this year and no trips to Germany possible, I was looking online to see if I could find this type of Adventskalender again. I discovered that these advent calendars are available on Amazon. We had the one in the picture above in 2019 and I bought the Pixi Adventskalender GOLD 2020 in 2020. It has classic children’s books so in addition to some reading, my daughter was getting exposure to some of the classics among German children’s books.
Bottom line:
- These advent calendars are a healthy alternative insofar as children get books instead of chocolate.
- They are a good reminder to read and thus spend quality time with our little bilinguals.
Ideas for English-speaking families
Unfortunately, I haven’t found this type of prepackaged calendar with English books yet. But there is always the option to DIY. For example, for children in preschool, you could get a number of books such as the alphabet series and turn them into a calendar yourself by wrapping them up individually and tying them to a string. That way, you can work on or repeat a letter each day. Alternatively, you can buy other books and turn them into a calendar … you may just need 25 instead of 24 books if you live in the United States.
Happy Adventszeit, everyone!
