Since the 2024 Godzilla Advent Calendar (pictured above) was such a fiasco, I had to get a new Advent calendar. I looked for another, more reputable Godzilla one on Amazon, but was unable to find one. Woe is me. So instead, I bought another one, featuring the original, 66-million-year-old Kaiju: Dinosaurs!

So here’s what I bought: Yep, National Geographic’s ULTIMATE DINOSAUR AVENT CALENDAR!

Each day has a different dinosaur activity or toy, which I find mighty spiffy. Today’s featured the tools needed to work on each activity:

There is a pallete, a few different-colored paints, a page of stickers, a bag full of tiny googly eyes, and a small instruction booklet that also includes FUN FACTS about dinosaur as well as human history behind the day’s activity. This also includes a small river rock that is actually core of the activity for Day One. For Day One, you paint the rock and apply and paint a sticker. Here’s my finished product:

The red paint did not show up as brightly as I’d wanted it to. I applied a sticker that was just a pair of bones crossing each other, because I thought it was a bit piratical and I’m still running my pirate-themed Pathfinder game; I figured the red paint is probably the color of blood, so that’s another win. I painted the bones white, but discovered I am no good at painting small details.

Of course, this is only Day One of the activity book and we’re currently on December 4, so I have some catching up to do.

In other news, my family made it through November in mostly one piece. November has traditionally been a hard month for my family, and we discussed that at our family Thanksgiving gathering on Sunday. The first thing we were all stunned and traumatized by was the results of the November 5 Presidential election. Seriously. Trump? Again? What the hell!

Then my younger sister and my parents and Jennifer and I all lost a pet during the week before Thanksgiving. These events were not related. My parents’ small dog Fergus died of natural causes, as did my sister’s cat Cece; and, of course, there was our cat Ingrid. Here’s hoping that December is more pleasant all around!

Happy Holidailies!