Picture Advent Calendars in the 1980s

[FurForksSake]

DH and I have just had a festive discussion : disagreement.

AIBU to ask you - if you had a picture advent calendar as a child, we are mid 40s so perhaps in that era or before or after, did you get a new picture advent calendar every year, or reused the one you were given for years (decades..)

if you remember - what was the scene in your advent calendar / favourite calendar?

90s baby of strict parents - we reused the same picture calendar every year, taking it in turns to open the doors. Quite wholesome in a way, but now that the old gits have softened with age and I'm an adult we do all have chocolate advent calendars!

Reused each year. Christmas eve was a double window! Loved it, but not as much as the card christmas house, with a hole at the bottom for small presents and the fake snow fluffy roof. Knowing after xmas lunch there was a little present there for everyone was so exciting.

One of my friends still has the same one from the mid 80s. His children open it with him.

Am I making this up, or was day 6 Santa because the 6th is St Nicholas's day? I am going to have to get one next year.

I don’t remember picture calendars like this at all - completely passed me by!

born 1980 and only remember chocolate ones.

For all the nostalgia, I bloody loved DS’s Star Wars advent calendar era.

We got a new one each year.

Reused I think. We had a big Rudolph / sleigh one on the wall that we used for years and really wish we still had.

A new one every year - otherwise the doors would already be open?

Once my Mum accidentally got one with only writing inside the windows and no picture - and I was so young I couldn’t read!

We had a beautiful wooden one that we reused each year. We also had a chocolate one each year too.

We had new picture ones and I loved them I got them for DC until mil got her the cheap nasty fake Cadbury and of course she prefers that.

We had a new one every year, loved them. My sibling and I shared one and took turns opening the little doors.

I remember my first chocolate advent calendar. My friend moved to Germany when we were 13 and sent me one. I was thrilled, it was so exciting because I'd never seen one before. This would've been around 1977.

Reused here but I have quite a few siblings so we rotated them. I remember the year I finally got the glittery one!

New one

Reused and shared with my DB. We still managed to get excited about opening it years later.

Yes! You’ve unlocked a memory! The pictures in ours were glow in the dark and it had a very glittery front. We had the same one every year and me and my sister shared it. We did have chocolate ones too when we were a bit older, but also still used the picture one.

It’s such an interesting split between reuse and new! I reused the same one for years and if it was still in my possession I would still.

DH chucked his every year, I was shocked!

And yes we were watched Josh Widdecomb that sparked the conversation!

I love the Bethlehem skies picture with the lit windows, that sounds gorgeous.

im very tempted to buy a pictures only one.

my children share a chocolate adventure calendar and have a handmade (by me) advert chimney with a matchbox a day with something in.

DS now 14, has had picture only Advent calendars every year. I do throw his away and buy new every year.

I used to keep the little doors so they were definitely removed when I was a little girl 🙈😂

I got a new one every year. The one I remember most had glitter on it over a picture of the Nativity with stars in the dark blue sky above. The pictures were always different 'festive' things.

I used to genuinely look forward to opening it every morning, it seemed to make the days go quicker as you'd be surprisingly far through advent before you knew it.

I don't really understand why chocolate ones have taken over - they're so ugly - I can understand children wanting chocolate but why not buy a box of chocolates and have one every morning? Why ruin advent calendars?

I had advent calendars in the 70's, I used to pull the doors off and make pictures out of them. They'd have stars, angels, robins etc on the back. My favourite inner picture was the jolly snowman with glitter. My calendars were picture only. I was lucky that my Dad was in the Merchant Navy and I'd have stuff from all over the world. Had my DD in 1989 and was a Step Mum. Woolworths had started to do an array of chocolate calendars. Cartoon and Disney themed. I used to do a Christmas Eve bag for my DD, which had the newly released Disney DVD in and the matching PJs from M&S.

I had one, which was reused every year as far as I recall. The familiarity of it was a big part of the Christmas feeling, although I don't remember any of the specific pictures.

39 here, not mid-forties and we had a picture advent calendar.

We had the same one year in, year out. My mum would put it under the carpet to flatten it back out. AND we shared it between 6 of us, taking it in turns to open the doors.

But I am not really the person to judge by, as my mum was/is famously stingy. She used to open packets of cereal, take the toys out that used to come in the cereal before we could get to them, save them all year, wrap them up and give them to us as Christmas presents.

DH on the other hand, is 41, didn't know that picture calendars were a thing and he and his four siblings always had a chocolate one each.

We had a new one every year. And we were dirt poor. I used to like guessing mittens.

I've always had a picture one. I had to buy my own this year as my mother died earlier in the year and always bought one for me (I'm 63).