I could have sworn I’ve written about the Santa Mouse calendar before, but a quick search of the Chistmas Stories posts on my blog UnitedMonkee has come up with nothing. Ah well, no big deal, I’ll explain here. When I was a kid, I got this very simple, but very nice calendar counting down the days until Christmas. You move a tiny, semi-stuffed mouse from pocket to pocket until you finally reach Christmas Eve. I’ve had this thing so long, I don’t actually remember a December without it. I even brought it out for my very first Christmas in New York and had it hung in my room. As the calendar was preparing to flip from November to December, I made a trip with Lucy to the storage unit and dug out the calendar. As usual, it was the very first piece of Christmas decorations to go up and was just about the only thing for awhile until the missus and I got really focused and knocked the rest out of the park. Lucy seemed to get a kick out of the Santa Mouse and, like pretty much everything, she popped him right in her mouth. Snatched from her jaws, SM has been helping me keep track of the date and how many shopping days I have left.It’s fun having little traditions like that to pass on to my daughter. I know she doesn’t get it yet, but assuming our storage unit stays sound, it’ll be around when she is old enough to. I hope she’ll get as much of a kick out of it then as I did.