This thing has been linked thousands of times across the web, but it’s so good, I can’t resist mindlessly joining in. By the enigmatic Mark Fowler:

The 2002 Perl Advent Calendar - Each day you can open one secret little door and find a tutorial on one Perl module. The quality so far is excellent - on par with the Perl Cookbook, for example. You can’t cheat though… the little doors won’t open until the appointed day arrives. A very special surprise is promised for Chrismas day itself.

For impatient kids, there is a way to sneak in and open your presents before Christmas, sort of. Last year’s calendar! You can jump right to December 25th if you like!

Last year’s calendar, though, isn’t quite as good. It just has brief descriptions of the modules, no tutorials. And the 2000 Calendar, while available, has even less… Just links straight the module docs. So we really do have to wait till Chrismas for our presents.