Advent Calendars

Yes, I am a little late, technically an advent calendar would have started yesterday. But I feel it is never too late for an Advent Calendar. If you don't know what an Advent Calendar is, it is mostly known as a calendar like a box with the dates mixed around and each date has a door. When you open this door you get chocolate inside. At least that is the one I am most familiar with. Recently however they have evolved. If you are really creative you can make your own little boxes with numbers on them as an advent calendar. Or some people even do books as an advent Calendar!

In our search for Candies and Chocolates, we found quite a few Advent Calendars online. The following are from Purdy's: Vegan Dark Chocolate Advent Calendar - this is their vegan box that is made with pieces of their best selling vegan 60% dark chocolate, Winter Village Hanging Advent Calendar - this one doesn't really say anything about the chocolate inside it simply says that it is beautiful as a display on the table, or strung up as a garland, this one comes in individual boxes so you can do whatever you please with them (arrange on the tree is another of their suggestions), their Christmas Village Advent Calendar is next, it works similarly to the Winter Village one but this one comes with two extra packs of milk and dark chocolate Holiday Foiled Bells, just in case. And finally, we have their 12 Days Advent Calendar - this box has twelve handmade chocolates that are different every day.

Sticking with Chocolate we are going to look at some of Amazon's Chocolate Advent Calendars. I decided to do this by theme just to make things easier, but do not be surprised to see Amazon come up again down below. But for now, we are going to focus on the Chocolate ones I found. The first one is the Lindt Lindor Advent Calendar - it says assorted pieces of chocolate - milk, dark or white chocolate truffle balls. Now the reviews are great about the chocolate but horrible about the price. Some say you can find these in stores for much cheaper or at the Lindor store for even less. So keep that in mind and try and find the best deal if this is something that appeals to you. They also have a Teddy Advent Calendar and the comments are much the same, cheaper elsewhere. So again if you are looking into these calendars you may want to go right to the source instead and see if they ship in your country. Overall for these Lindt Lindor Advent Calendars, I would suggest buying them in person, or on Lindt's website. Another option is buying the chocolates yourself and then getting small boxes and making your own Advent Calendar. (Ironically, next week I am going to showcase some Lindt chocolates I think would make great stocking stuffers so if you are interested keep an eye out for that!) They also have a Lindt Kids Christmas Advent Calendar, these have great reviews but again a little on the pricy side.

I also saw other Chocolate Advent Calendars. These may be better fits for you. I had never seen a Ferrero Collection Advent Calendar, so if you/your family is into that they have one. The only downside I can tell is that it is their traditional three so you will get the same chocolate over and over again. Keep in mind again though one of the comments was it is more expensive than in stores. They also have a Hershey's Kisses Advent Calendar which is getting great reviews (5 stars). The description says each door contains 2 Hershey's Kisses, one for you and one to share. But it does say that there are only five different flavours so you will get repeats. Next, we have a few Nestle ones, first KitKat Hockey Holiday Advent Calendar. Again this one only has four different kinds (KitKat Senses Hazelnut, KitKat Senses Salted Caramel, KitKat Reindeer, and KitKat Santa. You will clearly get doubles from this one also. There were a lot of complaints with this one, mostly that the packaging sucks. So keep in mind you may have to rearrange the candies or have a different set-up for them. I also found this one which had much better reviews. (Sticking with the KitKat theme for a moment, they have a KitKat House kit, instead of a Ginger Bread House kit and that looks adorable!) NESTLE has another Advent Calendar also this one has KitKat, Aero and Smarties. This one has much better reviews but still says that the candy has a tendency to move around. So keep in mind you may have to open the box and rearrange things once you receive it. Next, we have the HERSHEY'S Cookies N Creme Advent Calendar. It says that it has 16 Hershey's Cookies N Creme Kisses, 8 Hershey's Cookies N Creme Snack sized bars and 1 full-size Hershey's Cookies N Creme. So they are all basically the same just the size is different. To me, this one is not worth it. You can probably get a few Cookies N Creme candy bars and holiday moulds and make your own cute little chocolates for cheaper. You can also get a thing of Mini Kisses from almost anywhere. I feel the same about the Cadbury Dairy Milk Advent Calendar. It is all the same chocolate just in different shapes. Again you could do this at home for much cheaper. And finally, we have a Reese's Advent Calendar, like the other ones the complaints are that it is much more expensive than in stores so keep that in mind.

They also have other Advent Calendars that aren't chocolate related. The ones that really stood out to me are the Yves Rocher Deluxe Mysterious Advent Calendar. It is 24 days of Body Products - Body Care, Skin, Hair Care, Make-up and Fragrance. This one has a five-star rating on Amazon and seems like a great choice for anyone who enjoys bath and body products. Next is an interesting one this is for the comic book fan in your life, it is the Funko Advent Calendar Marvel 80th Anniversary Edition (Candy Depot has "The Office" themed one). This comes with 24 POP's of Marvel Characters. These last two I bought myself. I got the Harry Potter: Holiday Magic Advent Calendar. It promises twenty-five days of surprises and talks about unique keepsakes and collectables. However, it does go on to say festive paper ornaments, recipe cards, and more. So more than likely this is not "official" Harry Potter stuff. But it may still be interesting (especially if the price is right). And finally, we have Naler Advent Calendars. These have Jewelry in them and it has one Necklace and one Bracelet followed by a lot of beads to decorate them with. The reviews were not bad on this one, again like most of them there were complaints of the items moving around, but it says you can open the box and set them back if need be. They also said the clasp on the Bracelet tends to break easily so be careful if you do order this one.

I hadn't planned on including this in my post but as I was researching some Advent Calendars it popped up on my Facebook, so here is another one. David's Tea has Advent Calendars! They had their regular 24 Days of Tea, 24 Days of Caffeine Free Tea, and 24 Days of Matcha!

But Advent Calendars are going so far beyond that even. They have some beautiful Advent Calendars that are just little designs that counts the dates for you. I love this one that is in the shape of a Snowman! Next, we have a bunch of little boxes. These are so cute they come decorated and numbered so all you have to do is fill the boxes! I love this idea if you have your own little items but don't want to do stockings let's say, you can always put them in these little boxes. And finally, sticking with that theme they have a beautiful Wooden Box Holiday Advent Calendar. It is beautiful, it has all these little doors you can put items in and it really is a centrepiece.