Jenny once described her mum as ‘the living warrior, armed with lemon-scented cleaning sprays’. It was true, because Dot’s house always smelled fruity and was absolutely spotless. Jenny had inherited most of this need for keeping things spick and span and making sure everything was always ‘in its right place’.
However, the same cannot be said for Jenny’s son, Leo. He had reached the age where he believed that most things were just dropped on the floor, and windows and doors looked perfectly fine covered in greasy, smudged fingerprints, as if created by famous artists.
Leo and Jenny call in to see Dot regularly, and each time, just before their arrival, Dot would try to ‘Leo-proof’ her house: well at least she moved her few precious items out of harm’s way. Leo was an unpredictable whirlwind: you could never guess which way his arms would swing or what they might accidentally hit.
After each visit, Dot would immediately put things back, and if everything had survived she’d breathe a sigh of relief.
Then she would look for … something. First in the obvious places: under the settee, behind the curtains and on the stairs. Then she would search in less obvious locations: behind the radiator, in the bath and on top of the flower pots. Often, she would find it: something Leo had left behind.
It was like a hide-and-seek party game. The significant difference was that Dot always did the seeking and Leo never hid anything: he just left things. A plastic sword here. A toy car there. Once he left a jumper and a pair of shorts. Goodness knows what he went home in that day.
Dot never got fed up with finding Leo’s lost items, not at all. In fact, she loved it. It was as if Leo was leaving a little piece of himself for Dot to hold on to, after he’d gone home.
If there was a call from Jenny, asking “Have you found…?” Dot would always be able to say “Yes,” and the item would be retrieved later. On one occasion, Leo had managed to ‘lose’ his English homework, which was picked up the same day. Leo certainly wasn’t going to write that long story out twice. Over the last few years, Dot had managed to gather quite a substantial collection of items which Leo and Jenny hadn’t realised were missing.
Under her kitchen sink, Dot kept a blue plastic basket. She had dropped all of Leo’s unclaimed items in there, as if she were storing some of Leo’s life.
“Finders, keepers,” she’d said to herself as she lowered the latest object in the basket: it held the connection between a grandparent and a grandchild.
It was a muggy August afternoon, with the windows wide open, when Dot came up with her genius idea. She’d put the lemon cleaning spray back as it was far too hot to polish the fireplace, and she pulled out the blue basket to see how many of Leo’s things she had collected over the years.
Dot spread them all out across the kitchen table and counted: twenty-four. She made herself a pot of Earl Grey tea, sat down and started to move Leo’s lost possessions around. Without realising, Dot was putting the things in chronological order of when he had left them. The baby sock was the easiest to start with and she pushed it to one edge of the table. The headphones, which she found in the downstairs bathroom last month, were moved to the far edge. By the time she had finished sorting, her tea was cold. Dot still drank it: it was far too good to waste.
After washing her cup and saucer and wiping down the sink, Dot found a piece of card in her ‘odds and sods’ drawer. She cut out 25 small squares and wrote a number on each one. The tiny cards were then laid on or propped up against Leo’s lost treasures.
Dot’s idea was to create a unique Advent calendar. Piece by piece she would give Leo a small memory back of all the lovely times he’d spent at her house.
This morning, she had made that first important step: transforming thought into reality. Nothing would stop Dot now. Even though December was still a long way away, for Dot the countdown to Christmas had started very early this year.
After mashing a fresh pot of tea she felt very pleased with herself but was not at ease with Leo’s belongings covering the table: it looked like an eruption at a ‘bring and buy’ stall.
By the 1st of December, Dot’s living room was an explosion of reds and greens. Beautiful garlands had been wrapped around every visible surface, which had slightly tested Dot’s fear of untidiness. A mechanical snowman, sitting on the coffee table worryingly close to the green candles, was triggered into singing “Frosty the Snowman” in a tinny, caffeinated voice every time Dot walked past. She really didn’t like it, but somehow at the same time, loved it. On a few occasions, she had deliberately strolled in front of it, then sang along in her alto voice. She knew Leo would be thrilled and wear out the snowman’s batteries before he went home. Dot also did not doubt that Leo would be fascinated by what was set out on the front room floor: boxes. Twenty-five of them.
Each box was wrapped in different paper: sparkly, recycled from old grocery bags, brown paper adorned with hand-drawn doodles of penguins and one box was even wrapped in a tea towel. The kaleidoscopic collection had been artistically placed on the fireside rug, in the shape of a Christmas tree.
At the top was the smallest, thinnest box, only big enough to hold a few matches. A gold star stuck on this box caught the light of the gas fire flames and it seemed to dance with excitement. In the middle of the star Dot had written the number 25 and in the tiniest of writing, ‘Merry Christmas, Leo.”
When Leo, now a sprightly 10-year-old with a chipped front tooth and a wardrobe almost entirely composed of graphic T-shirts with bad puns, arrived for his regular visit, he was immediately drawn to the tree of boxes. It even won his attention over the singing snowman.
“Whoa,” he breathed, eyes wide. “Did you buy all that? It’s amazing.”
Dot scoffed so hard she nearly choked on her ginger snap.
“Buy? I handcrafted all of this with my two arthritic hands and a few tubes of glitter glue, my young man.” She scooped up the damp biscuit crumbs and dropped them into her empty cup.
Leo poked at one of the biggest boxes. “What’s in number 14?”
“Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“Can I open it now?”
“Ha, hold your horses, it’s not that easy. You know what an Advent calendar is. This is your boxed Advent calendar. You can open one box a day. You and Mum will have to pop in every day, if you want to get them all.”
Jenny looked across at her mum, raised her eyebrows, then smiled.
“But, as it is the 1st of December today, you can open number one.”
Without disturbing the silent snowman, Leo snatched up the box, shook it a couple of times and ripped into it. Dot had seen Leo open many presents and had learned that speed was Leo’s main tactic. She had planned ahead, and with the help of an abundance of Sellotape, these boxes weren’t going to be opened in record time.
“What?” Leo called out as a blue ankle sock fell to the ground.
“It’s all yours,” Dot said, as she laughed.
“Thanks,” Leo said with more than a hint of sarcasm. He sniffed it and gagged dramatically.
“It smells like cinnamon and babies’ feet.”
Then he saw the five-pound note sticking out of the top. He squeezed his hand in the sock and made a mouth with his thumb and fingers.
“Thanks, Grandma. I’m not quite sure about the sock, but the money is brill,” the sock said cheerfully.
Jenny looked across at the sock and a distant memory stirred.
“We’ll certainly be back tomorrow for box two,” Leo announced and stood up to hug his grandma. In doing so he had activated the snowman and they all joined in singing ‘Frosty the Snowman’. Before they got to the chorus, Dot had tidied up the wrappings from box one.
By the 5th of December, Leo realised the boxes contained things that had belonged to him. The half-chewed dinosaur had got him thinking, but what made the penny drop was the Thomas the Tank Engine model. He actually remembered playing with it. Dot had wrapped it, along with two sticks of Blackpool rock she had bought in September.
“The rock is supposed to be the train track for Thomas,” she said.
As quick as ever, Leo replied as he unwrapped one of them, “Well, I’m afraid Thomas has been downgraded to a monorail.”
They all laughed and Frosty started to sing.
The handwritten joke book stopped Leo in his tracks.
“I can’t believe I left this with you!” It was a small, blue notebook, its cover smudged with what might have been jam, marker pen or ketchup. Inside were dozens of Leo’s jokes.
“You wrote your first stand-up routine in there,” Dot said, picking bits of glitter from her sleeve. “You were nearly six, and told me I should open your show with a solo to liven up the audience.”
Leo burst out laughing. “I think, I’d prefer Frosty to do that,” waving his hands in front of the snowman.
With only a few days remaining till Christmas, Leo opened the box wrapped in silver foil.
The front of a cornflakes packet fell out. Written on the back was Leo’s last year’s Christmas wish list.
“Dear Santa,” he read aloud.
“I would like a microphone, a magic set and the McIntyre joke book.
Thank you.
Love, Leo.
PS. Please cancel my earlier request for a baby brother. His crying would mess up my performance.”
On Christmas morning, Jenny drove over to pick up her mum as lunch was going to be at their house. Leo had stayed at home to play with his Christmas presents.
“You’ve got Leo’s last box, Mum? He won’t want to miss this one.”
No way would Dot forget it.
The final box’s star had curled at the edges from being too near the fire.
Twenty minutes later, before Dot had even sat down, Leo dropped what he was doing, opened the minuscule box number 25 and found a handwritten letter. He read it out.
Dear Leo,
By now, you’ve unwrapped twenty-four memories.
Forgotten toys, smelly sock, and crusty sweets, left behind by accident.
I never saw them as a mess.
To me, they were bits of you, scattered through my house like gold dust.
I saved them because they made me laugh. They reminded me of the joy you bring every time you burst through my door like a wild animal in expensive trainers. This homemade Advent calendar wasn’t just about gifts: it was a countdown of love. A reminder that every little thing you leave is a part of the story we’ve written together.
Hopefully, we will go on writing.
When you’re grown-up and busy being a professional entertainer I want you to remember that my old house, and this old Grandma, will always have a box ready to store your next forgotten sock and next joke.
Merry Christmas, Leo.
Love you,
Grandma Dot.
Leo blinked hard and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
Then he threw his arms around his grandma and squeezed her until her glasses fogged.
“I love you, Gran,” he whispered.
“I love you more, stinky sock,” she replied.
Back at Dot’s empty house, Frosty was singing his song.
Only Leo’s dusty Star Wars figure, wedged between the book shelf and the wall, could hear him.
Published, People’s Friend, November 2025
