The Advent of Calendars

Every year I go to the store and stare dumbfounded at the Christmas items. My first thought is often, September seems a little early to be selling Christmas items, but that’s followed by my indecision trying to pick out my advent calendar for the Christmas season. The advent calendar is probably the first Christmas treat I think about for the holidays. It seems like the only holiday treat you can buy well before Christmas, mostly because you actually start eating it on December 1st.

So there I am, staring at the vast selection of cardboard walls filled with 24 doors hiding surprises behind each. The question is, which one should I get? For the sake of argument, and to keep this blog on brand, let’s eliminate any non-candy themed advent calendar. I’m not saying that they’re inauthentic or better or worse than the candy themed advent calendars. I just feel like they’re in a category all their own. The question I want to focus on is which of the candy filled advent calendars should I get.

While the selection is huge, one thing I’ve noticed is that almost all of them seem to have a chocolate theme. It’s pretty rare (if not impossible) to find an advent calendar filled with hard candy or gum. There’s also three basic categories I find with advent calendars. There’s the inexpensive basic chocolate calendars, calendars filled with popular candy bars, and calendars filled with fine chocolates. The prices of these different categories also have a huge range. First let’s look at each category, then try and figure out what’s best.

To me, the most traditional form of advent calendars are the simple chocolate ones. At the very least, these are the kind that I used to get as a kid. I’m not sure if the candy bar calendars and fancy calendars came out later in my life, or if my parents kept them away from me so they wouldn’t have to spend that much money. In general the quality of the chocolate is not great. Sometimes it’s downright awful (as I’m experiencing right now). The kinds/sizes of the chocolate in these simple advent calendars tends to be pretty basic, on occasion they have a bigger chocolate for the last one. Shapes can also vary in variety, however I often find that these simpler calendars have some pretty festive shapes and designs. The biggest advantage of these advent calendars is the price. If you’re looking for the fun of opening a door every day, maybe to a fun little shape, but you don’t care about the chocolate, these are for you.

The next category is the candy bar calendars. These are advent calendars filled with a name brand candy like Kit Kat or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I feel like these have come about more recently as advent calendars have become more popular. The size of the treat in these can also vary, but most of the time you have snack or mini sized versions of the classic treat, with a full sized treat as your last. Theme wise it can sometimes be a little weak as the focus is on the candy being recognizable and not festive. Although this is changing a bit over the last few years with many candy brands releasing special holiday themed versions of their treats. The price of these is one of the differences between these and the simple advent calendars. You can find these candy bar calendars going for 10 times the price of the basic simple calendars. These will give you the treats you want/like, but you’re paying for it and you might be disappointed with the size of each treat.

The final category of advent calendar is filled with fine chocolates. The quality of these treats guarantees you’ll enjoy eating each and every chocolate. Theme wise they can really vary, in some cases they can be truly festive, sometimes they just hint at the holidays, while other times they’re more concerned with making pretty chocolates over the festive spirit. These treats will often make your mouth very excited about opening each door, but it’s at a cost as they’re never cheap. I’ve seen some of these calendars go for over 100 dollars.

Which calendar you buy really depends on what experience you want, and if you’re willing to pay for it. In general, I tend to go for the simple cheap chocolate calendars. I feel like part of it is out of nostalgia, but also what I’m looking for. There’s something fun about opening a little door each morning, seeing a little festive designed treat, and getting just a little sweet chocolate taste. If I want something fancy or name brand, I feel like I’d be better off just buying that treat separately. I will say that on occasion I’ve been very disappointed with the quality of the treats in these simple calendars, however I’ve also been surprised at how good some of them are too. 

I feel like the ceremony of the advent calendar is much more important than the treat itself. While it’s always nice to get something tasty, it’s not so important to me that it would ruin the yearly tradition of opening up little doors every day in December even if the chocolate isn’t that great.

CC