whale fight

meghanagain:

This morning I unwrapped my chintzy Trader Joe’s advent calendar, located the 1, and carefully pulled back the tiny cardboard door. Inside was a sliver of candy, chocolate in persuasion, stamped with some sort of festive adornment. An angel? A flower? Hard to say. This is the first advent calendar I have ever purchased for myself. Growing up there was always one on the mantel and my brother and I alternated days. Always before school, backpacks dragging and puffy winter coats askew, leaning on each other to see what each date held inside. Usually it was a paper calendar, each door hiding a picture or cartoon, perforations that had to be cracked with a skilled fingernail. One year there was a splurge, a wooden calendar with little drawers and tiny ornaments inside. Christmas is a very good time.

Leslie Harpold’s advent calendar was one of my favorite things about the Internet, and December 1st is the day I miss it most fiercely. Today though I decided it could be different, we could have a version. The Wayback Machine captured the calendar archive in pieces, and some pieces are clearer than others, so, I’ve mixed and matched and I don’t know, let’s call it a quilt. A patchwork waybackmachine Leslie Harpold advent calendar. Don’t open it all at once. Make sure to give your little brother a turn. Merry Christmas.

1. December 1 (2001)
2. December 2 (2004)
3. December 3 (2005)
4. December 4 (2001)
5. December 5 (2003)
6. December 6 (2002)
7. December 7 (2005)
8. December 8 (2002)
9. December 9 (2003)
10. December 10 (2005)
11. December 11 (2001)
12. December 12 (2005)
13. December 13 (2002)
14. December 14 (2003)
15. December 15 (2001)
16. December 16 (2001)
17. December 17 (2003)
18. December 18 (2004)
19. December 19 (2005)
20. December 20 (2005)
21. December 21 (2003)
22. December 22 (2005)
23. December 23 (2001)
24. Christmas Eve (2001)
25. Christmas (2002)

(If you’re more of the DIY Internet memory type, you can make your way through the calendars here: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005.)

This is exactly what I needed.