Advent season is almost upon us and if you’re anything like us, you cannot wait to open that number 1 on the 1^st of December! Try and be strong! Advent Calendars are a popular festive tradition every year all over the world. Here in NZ this year (and particularly Auckland), we definitely feel like that countdown will be even sweeter after these last few months! Roll on 2022!!

We think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they eat their advent calendar! Are you a stickler for the rules, and eat one chocolate per day at the same time every day, or do you find that everything’s disappeared before the first week of December is out?! After a bit of online research, we can tell you someone actually holds the record for the fastest time to eat all 24 chocolates from an advent calendar, in 1 minute and 27 seconds. So don’t feel too bad if you don’t make it past the first week.

But where did the idea of advent calendars come from? The word Advent literally means ‘coming toward’. The idea is thought to be traced back to the Nineteenth Century, when German Protestants would mark walls or doors with a line of chalk  to count the days leading up to Christmas. The actual design of an advent calendar is thought to have come about in the early 1900’s in Germany as a printed version of 24 pictures. Fast forward to Christmas 2021 and the advent calendar options are mind-blowing! Including lego, alcohol, make up, and even plants! To us, a lot of that sounds wasteful and like a whole lot of packaging! Yes 24 little bottles of moisturiser sounds cute, but in reality I bet they’ll still be sat in your drawer come next Christmas!

We love the idea of an edible advent calendar because we see it as a way to take a moment each day to savour and to look forward to. Open the number for that day, take a bite, and zone out of whatever else is going on in your world. It’s a ritual that can create lasting memories and form traditions over generations. And if there’s ever a month to indulge a little bit extra each day, then December is it. The only question you need to ask yourself is, are advent calendars for gifting to others, or buying for yourself?

We have 2 advent calendar options available this year, each with 24 cute-as festive house boxes to add colour and cheer around the place throughout December. The Jolly Advent Calendar is more aimed at kids, but hey no judgement! It contains a selection of chocolates, caramels, marshmallows, hokey pokey, and fruit jellies. The Decadent Advent Calendar is exactly that, with a range of different flavoured chocolate bonbons inside, including Salted Caramel, Rhubarb and Custard, Gin and Tonic, Espresso Martini, and Christmas Cake to name a few. Both sets can be ordered with either one or two sets of treats, and are gluten free, dairy free and soy free. We hate the idea of waste and have done our best to minimise packaging, whilst protecting the all important edible treats, and encourage you to recycle and repurpose where possible. We also have advent re-fills available for filling your own advent calendar, or one of ours from previous years.

Each little house has an anecdote to read each day, and you can either decide to pop your treats right inside the house boxes, or have a little fun and add a note inside each one with a clue as to where you've hidden the treat each day. 

However you choose to enjoy your advent calendars, we hope ours can bring some festive joy to you and yours this Christmas.