To feel sad that a £2 chocolate advent calendar is no longer enough?

[Ricekrispie22]

There are so many toy based advent calendars around these days and I feel they're just getting bigger and bigger. thetoptoys.blogspot.com/2018/09/toy-based-advent-calendars-sequel.html#more
I much preferred it when you could just get them a good old Cadbury choc calendar and that was enough. It's not like I need any more plastic tat in my house. Is it just me?

Never known anyone get a toy advent calender. As for £2 advent calendars you are being ripped off ... I normally find 2 for £2 deals , I may just stretch to 2 for £3 if I am feeling generous 😂

Also reindeer food. I love Christmas but there is a lot of crap that's appeared since I was a child.

Our local garden centre has had a Christmas section for the last week, getting bigger by the day.

I love Christmas, so don't mind much. To be honest I'm just counting down the days til I can play Johnny Mathis.

DD still gets a picture one!

There is a lot of extra crap around... reindeer food, toy calendars, elf on the shelf... but you have a choice as to wether to buy these things. I choose not to, as do most people I know. However, shops wouldn’t sell them if people didn’t buy them.

I would never buy a big fancy calendar for DC, chocolates will have to do! I sometimes had picture only ones alongside a chocolate one & still loved both. Why all the extra junk about the place before the inevitable wave of it for Christmas?

However this is the first xmas in 5 years that I'm not working in retail so I do intend to splurge on a posh one just the once to help me savour my first December of freedom.

It's September ffs

We have a wooden calendar between the 3 kids, I fill it with a chocolate each (and occasionally a little note or little novelty eg a Lego xmas tree (that was mine when I was a kid) when it’s the day to go and pick the tree etc, we also have a set of tiny advent books with little mice on which fits in the doors of the wooden calendar. The books are from DHs family.

I did cave last year and got them all a Lego calendar on 3 for 2, they lost interest halfway through the month really and I had to keep reminding them to open it so I won’t be bothering this year.

Picture ones here too.
Dd1 bought herself a choc one last year in Poundland (cheaper choc than Cadbury & grim) but I'm not a fan!

I happily buy the Lego ones. Sorry, just don’t buy them if you don’t like them. I’d rather buy toys that are then used forever (made younger DS one with bits for his toy kitchen wrapped up last year s he was too small for Lego) than chocolate.

Ah I love chocolate advent calendars. I’m not far off 30 and still buy them for myself. The best ones are the German ones with beautiful pictures on which you can get at farm shops / markets. But if I can’t have that it has to be Cadbury’s, although the chocolate gets weirder and the pictures more cartoony every year.

I'll go a step further OP and say that a plain old picture advent calendar isn't enough for some.

Well that's what I buy....every year. From Germany where I can get beautiful, traditional ones. The joy of opening the window and seeing the picture is enough.

I am sad that you spend £2 on them!
Mine get a £1 one

Oh I love the German ones too. DS wouldn't be interested, but maybe I should get one for myself!

I looked for the old fashioned picture advent calendars in the shops when DC1 was tiny, but I was a bit dismayed to find that they were all more expensive than the standard £2 chocolate type OP mentions. I didn’t look online, no idea what prices are like for picture advent calendars there.

I know the picture ones are inherently more reusable than chocolate ones but DC have never yet gone an advent without pulling at least one door right off 😩

I felt the same about those type of advent calendars until MIL bought me an M&S beauty advent calendar last year. I loved it! I’ve been totally converted to the commercial expensive advent calendars I’m afraid and will probably get DD a toy one this year

I too am the era of a shared re-used every year paper calendar.

We now have a couple of playmobil calendars that like a pp faithfully get bagged back up each year and reused.

One year I looked at the WOW toys one but was unsure of the quality.

My child is allergic to dairy so I'm glad these exist.

Op fwiw I offered my kids the Lego one last year. They said no thanks not bothered. We had the pmaymobil the year before and they were underwhelmed. We have wooden calendars I fill with choc/tiny items. I think they like the family tradition more - whatever that ends up being

Perhaps some enterprising person will invent an advent calendar starting in September for adults to get excited about.
And I agree with Kokoloco

It will be a cold day in hell before I buy my children a toy based advent calendar. It's just another way to commercialise Christmas and get more money out of people.

I'm only 34 and I grew up with a glittery picture advent calendar until about age 7 when my mum bought chocolate ones, but she still used the picture one. Now I have my own home I avidly sought out a glittery picture one and reuse it every year. Such magical memories. My children love it too but I do also buy them chocolate calendars.

I've always bought picture ones.
I agree it's the tradition and not the 'getting'that children remember.

I hate the whole performance. It brings out the worst in everyone

We have a wooden one that 'the fairies' bring a wooden toy to. Admittedly now they are nearly teenagers they are less excited by it all but for years couldn't wait to see what they would get. Sometimes the fairies bring chocolates or notes promising to do something xmasy ( that we were going to do anyway). I think I'll get lynched if I didn't bring it down now.