[Ad-gifted] There’s something truly magical about counting down the days to Christmas, from the anticipation at the start of the month to those little daily moments of joy. Christmas Advent Calendar Ideas have evolved far beyond the simple chocolate-filled boxes of our childhoods. Today, they’re an experience in themselves, offering everything from gourmet treats, alcoholic drinks to beauty products.
This year, we are feature six fabulous Advent Calendars which promises to make every day of December feel special. We start off with Vista Print’s Advent Calendar which offers a beautifully personalised calendar with chocolate treats of your choice. Next, PLAYin Choc 12 Day Advent Calendar delivers a delightful surprise for little ones looking for organic, vegan and free from dairy, nut and gluten. Sticking with the chocolate theme, Ombar’s Vegan Advent Calendar offers pure indulgence without compromise. Crafted from ethically sourced cacao and plant-based ingredients, each bite is rich, creamy and guilt-free.
For the snack enthusiast, Popcorn Kitchen’s 12 Days of Christmas Popcorn Gift House adds a satisfying crunch to the season, with gourmet flavours that make every day pop. Rex London’s Fill Your Own Advent Calendar lets you curate the surprises yourself, ideal for families and crafty gift-givers. And let’s not forget the four-legged family member, we are also featuring Rosewood’s Cupid & Comet Luxury Deli Advent Calendar for Dogs from Animed which ensures your pup gets in on the festive fun with tasty, tail-wagging treats.
This Christmas, make the countdown as exciting as the big day itself with an advent calendar that celebrates joy and creativity with a sprinkle of festive magic!
Advent Calendar from Vista Print
Are you after a thoughtful treat for a your children, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, grandparent?
Well, this is the ultimate one size fits all Advent Calendar from Vista Print! The chocolate filled calendar is designed so that it can be personalised with a creative image, homemade drawing/painting or a great family photo. All you do is upload your picture onto the computer or on your phone then head to the Vista Print Advent Calendar link here and select your chocolate. You can choose from Kinder Minis priced at £28.99 (a crowd pleaser for the kids), Celebrations (£29.99), Lindor Praliné (£28.99), Lindor Balls (£31.99) which is what’s inside our featured Advent Calendar or the non-branded milk chocolate at a more reasonable £17.99.
The next step is to select the format of your calendar, which is all dependant on your picture. If you don’t have your own picture to upload, there are plenty of Christmas themed templates to choose from Vista Print’s website.
Then once all that is completed, you can place your order. You can then have the Advent Calendar delivered to whomever you like, making it the perfect personalised gift!
PLAYin Choc 12 Day Advent Calendar
We love PLAYin Choc chocolates and have featured their ToyChoc® Box in our guide before hence we were excited to feature their new 12 Day Advent Calendar on our blog. This is a great chocolate based advent calendar for kids as there are only 12 calendar doors to open so less chocolate to eat. That being said, they also do have a 24 chocolate, 24 toys and playmats Advent Calendar for sale this Christmas which you prefer that.
Priced at £27.50, 12 Day Advent Calendar is a great calendar as it is not just chocolate based but behind each of the dozen windows you’ll also find a super-cute festive toy plus fun facts card. Each planet-friendly collectable doubles up as a super-cute decoration. The outer sleeve of the advent can also be opened up to create a landscape in which you can place the 12 toys to play with.
This advent calendar makes an ethical alternative to other brands as they are 100% organic as well as dairy, nut, gluten, soy and plastic Free. Do also visit their website as there are so many other themed animals such as woodland animals, sea animals, endangered animals being featured on their website.
12 Days of Christmas Popcorn Gift House from Popcorn Kitchen
Looking for something savoury or a different sort of Advent Calendar this Christmas? Why not check out Popcorn Kitchen’s 12 Days of Christmas Popcorn Gift House which includes 9 of their most indulgent recipes brought together in a festive-themed house.
Behind each of the 12 windows is a full sized 20-30g artisanal popcorn bag. The Advent Calendar contains 2 bags each of their gourmet Salted Caramel Popcorn, Chocolate Orange Popcorn and White Chocolate & Raspberry Popcorn, together with 1 bag each of Lemon Drizzle, Chocolate Mint, Chocolate Brownie, Cheddar Cheese, Cherry Bakewell and Blueberry Muffin Popcorn. The perfect treat for any popcorn lovers!
Priced at £27.99 the popcorns are all vegetarian, gluten-free,wholegrain and GM free. They have also been hand-popped in the UK, using specially selected ingredients that deliver a fantastic crunch and amazing flavour and makes a wonderful gift for a loved one, young or old. These also make beautiful corporate gifts and there is also free UK delivery on all orders over £30.
Ombar Vegan Advent Calendar
If you are trying to change the way you think about chocolate be it for health reasons or to lead a more ethical life then do check out our feature of Ombar‘s first-ever Vegan Advent Calendar. Made in Britain, it features 25 super-cute bite-sized 5g bars with flavours such as Coco M’lk , smooth Blonde, silky Pistachio, tangy Raspberry & Coconut and creamy Hazelnut Truffle.
Ombar’s chocolates are organic, fair trade and made using unroasted cacao. They are also palm oil free as well as refined sugar free and free of additives and preservatives. We also love that their packaging is totally plastic free & fully recyclable. The chocolates are also dairy free and certified vegan and surprisingly Om-believably delicious!
So now, you can enjoy opening the calendar everyday without the guilt. The calendar is priced at £16.99 and you can purchase it from Ombar, health food stores and Planet Organic UK stores. If you are sending this as a gift to your God-child, niece/nephew or grandkids, then do add a note during checkout and the team will handwrite you a personalised message.
Fill your own Advent Calendar – Festive Friends from Rex London
Christmas is practically just around the corner now… and those who like to get organised early will already be putting things aside for the festive season. The shops are already full of chocolate advent calendars produced by all the big-name confectioners… but what if your child isn’t a fan of chocolate? Perhaps you want to get an advent calendar for an older child or a grown-up, or you have some ideas of your own for advent gifts.
Priced at £14.95 This fill your own reusable calendar with a festive friends theme from Rex London has 24 pull-out drawers in which you can load your own surprises for each day leading up to Christmas. The outside is a pleasing green colour and features cheerful dogs (which did prompt my children to ask if it was for humans or animals when they saw it!). It ties with a satin ribbon and is fairly robust, although care should be taken when opening the little drawers inside so as not to tear them.
You can see inside the drawers a little, but my recommendation is to wrap the gifts in a twist of coloured tissue paper to stop peeping eyes from second-guessing the contents! And as the children suggested, it could be filled with little dog treats for those who like indulging their pets.
I like the fact that it stands unsupported, unlike a lot of advent calendars. When not in use, it could be stored on a bookshelf. Its boxy shape is handy to gift-wrap and it would be ideal for boys and girls alike – of any age.
Rosewood Cupid and Comet Luxury Deli Advent Calendar for Dogs from Animed
When it comes to advent calendars, no one gets left out in our house, including the dog! This year, we opted for the Rosewood Cupid and Comet Luxury Deli Advent Calendar for our senior pooch Shelby.
The 24-window advent calendar costs £4.99 and is available from Animed. It weighs in at 100g and behind each window is a tasty dog treat made of 100% natural ingredients, including duck & orange glazed bites, lamb & rosemary strips, turkey & stuffing style meatballs and chicken & carrot fingers.
The treats are definitely more luxury than the cheaper ‘dog chocolate’ advent calendars but the quality of the meaty treats is much higher and is well worth the price. Shelby, our 11-year-old Westie Pug Cross, has never been a fan of dog chocolate, so we always opt for a meaty treat advent calendar. The Rosewood festive treats are made of real meat, are low in fat, and have no added salt, perfect for our furry family member!
As an older dog, Shelby struggles to chew really hard treats but luckily these ones are soft and chewy. Shelby samples all of the flavours and gobbled them all but her favourite was definitely the duck and orange bites. This is the perfect advent calendar for your dog!
You may also want to read this:
Christmas Gift Guide – Advent Calendar Gift Ideas
Christmas Gift Guide – Advent Calendar Gift Suggestions
Christmas Gift Guide – Advent Calendar
Christmas Gift Guide – Advent Calendar for the Whole Family
Christmas Gift Guides – Advent Calendars
* We were sent these Advent Calendars in return for a feature. All opinions are our own.
23 comments
Ooh. I have to get the dog advent calendars for my pooches. I’m so glad they can get in on the fun this year!
How lovely, I bet they would love the treats
I have to get that popcorn calendar for my husband this season. He would live off of popcorn if he could. LOL
That is such a cool calendar and the bags are a decent size as well and not too tiny
These calendars do sound lovely. I think the one we’d find the most fun is the Rex London one as it can be fun to fill them up with all sorts of weird and wonderful items and I’d excel at adding in the most amusing items for the kids.
Absolutely! What a great way to personalise the Advent Calendar
Christmas advent calendars are so awesome. It’s a nice way to build up excitement for the big day.
I agree, Advent Calendars are loved by both kids and adults
Advent calendars are awesome. It’s the perfect way to build up excitement for the holiday season
It is a great way to build up the momentum for the big day!
These all look fab! I really love play in choc. We’ve had their Christmas chocs a few years running now, but I didn’t even think about advent calendars for some reason.
Their advent calendar is new and they also have a 24-day calendar, so worth checking that out too
The VistaPrint one is very cute, I love that it’s a simple chocolate one but with your own photo. The popcorn one sounds like a good way to try out loads of different flavours x
The personalised photos on the Vista Calendar is a great gift for family members or grandparents
They’re all soooo awesome….I love the popcorn kitchen, it is great…I wish I could get them all lol…
You can buy the calendar for yourself too so you do not miss out
These calendars look lovely. I’d definitely want the popcorn one.
That is a wonderful and tasty savoury calendar
Love the fill your own Christmas advent calendar . We do one like this for the girls every year and they love it
That is such a great idea as you can personalise the calendar to your child’s liking
I love that you included a calendar for pets! My pets really love little treats and our kids love when they are included.
This is the first time I’ve seen an advent calendar for dogs, and I would love to get one for my furbaby. It sounds fun, and I am pretty sure my dog would enjoy trying new treats.
So glad we have shared that and hope you get it for your dog