Hi, my name is MourningDove, and I have an Advent Calendar problem. I collect them indiscriminately–well, not completely. I don’t like the ones with chocolates. But otherwise, if it’s got 24 little doors or drawers or socks or figurines or magnets or stickers or boxes or bows, I’ll take it. I have so many advent calendars that it takes me a full 10 minutes to open all the doors each morning.
The crown of my collection is the calendar I grew up with: a paper German tri-fold number that stands up and pops out to reveal a medieval winter market town scene. My sister and I used to take turns opening doors–even for her and odd for me because our birthdays were even and odd numbers respectively. That meant I got an extra day, as our calendar somewhat atypically ran through Christmas Day. But fortunately the Germans were prepared for this circumstance, as for so many things, because they provided enough extra doors for the 24th and 25th that we were mollified. I discovered by accident at some point that it had been backed with some sort of oil-paper that, if you put the calendar in front of a candle or some string lights, made it look like firelight was glowing out of the open doors of the town at night.
Maybe it was that inadvertent stroke of realism, but I started noticing the figures behind all the doors and wondering about them. So, I’ve decided to write another serial story for the Advent Season–one installment each night, about the figure behind each door. Only God knows if it’ll come together at the end….
Day One: The Donkeys
The brown donkey reached his long neck into the manger and ripped loose another mouthful of hay, chewing it lazily as he blinked out the stable door at the snow. The little white donkey next to him ripped it out of his lips and chomped it down with a mischievous glint in her onyx eyes. He just snorted and went back for more. He was too sleepy to fight with her. It was warmer than usual in the stable, in the town, because all the big braziers were lit. The snow danced in front of the flames like a cloud of black flies. Suddenly, the chains rattled on the portcullis in the town wall. The donkeys’ big, soft ears swept toward the sound like brown and white wings. They heard the guardsmen shouting to each other, heaving at the winch, heard the portcullis groan as it opened, like the innkeepers big dairy cow in the morning. The donkeys stopped chewing their hay. Someone was coming.
The Rookery 