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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be mildly vexed that chocolate advent calendars are the norm these days?

212 replies

MoChan · 04/12/2009 13:34

I used to be so excited by my picture one and didn't need chocolate to make it interesting. My step daughter can barely believe they ever existed and clearly can't see the point if there's no chocolate.

OP posts:
aquababe · 04/12/2009 13:37

They are banned from my house
We have a little one with a little story book that hangs on the tree instead far more enviromentally friendly and healthy.

cantmummyhaveabreak · 04/12/2009 13:38

you know what i'm the same... however i always had a chocolate one as a child. DS & DD1 (nearly 5yo & 3.7yo) have been bought a choccy one by my mum (she also got DD2 9mo one too but that went into the bin)- i haven't even got it out for them- i expect DH will eat them all on xmas night !!

PuppyMonkey · 04/12/2009 13:39

arf at "mildly vexed"...

YABU.. what's the point of an advent calendar without chocolate in it??

BendyBob · 04/12/2009 13:39

I think yab a bit u.

We didn't have them it's true, but then there are lots of things around now we didn't have. Doesn't make them awful.

TheDevilWearsPrimark · 04/12/2009 13:40

I had chocolate ones as a child.

We now have fabric ones and they have alternate small chocolate or tiny toy in each day (this year it's little plastic dinosaurs)

Why do you really care?

NightShoe · 04/12/2009 13:41

YABU, I cannot understand why anyone gets "mildly vexed" over what is essentially a non-compulsory piece of chocolate.

FimbleHobbs · 04/12/2009 13:42

We have lovely old fashioned picture ones, plus a wooden thing with little drawers with sweeties in.

I am very sad though, I get the DC to try and act out their picture each day while the rest of us try and guess what it is!

teameric · 04/12/2009 13:42

I agree although I don't mind so much if the advent calender actually have something to do with Christmas. This year My DS (10) has an X Factor one and DD(3) a Toy Story one and neither are remotely Christmassy (my DH let them choose them

Bramshott · 04/12/2009 13:42

No - me too! The DD's have one with pockets that I fill with little things (clips, balloons, stickers etc) but this year my grandmother got them chocolate ones as well. Guess which one they're now most excited by .

CaptainUnderpants · 04/12/2009 13:42

YABU - times change , our childrens expectations change . 50 yrs ago you had oone christmas present now children expect the Argos catalogue contents !

Tiimes are a changing

lal123 · 04/12/2009 13:42

DDs has chocolate and NO picture this year - she loves it. Mildly surprised that you were excited by your picture one...

PerArduaAdSolInvictus · 04/12/2009 13:44

YANBU. The first Christmas DS was old enough to notice/care (so just approaching 3) I dug out a cloth one we'd been given and spent ages thinking of things to put in, including activities like 'put up tree', 'make gingerbread house' and 'print wrapping paper', putting small chocs in the ones left over.

His older cousins had already talked to him.

December 1st - 'but where's the chocolate?'

Sigh.

Original poster
MoChan · 04/12/2009 13:44

There were chocolate ones when I was a child, too, it's just I didn't have/want them.

I suppose it vexes me because I feel as though chocolate has become too essential to people's lives.

And because Christmas seems to have turned into a festival of gluttony, in which nothing can exist without a coating of chocolate/booze/etc.

And because picture calendars celebrate the nice, non-food things about Christmas...?

Maybe. Perhaps other than that, I'm just irrational. I don't think it's a nostalgia thing, though.

OP posts:
nymphadora · 04/12/2009 13:45

My dds have never had them with chocolate in (8&9) and this year dd2 saw one in a book shop and bought it for herself and chose one for her sister. Neither had chcolate in

I did joke about getting a chocolate one for DH when we were in the pound shop and dd2 said 'dont be silly Christmas isnt about chocloate' I think my brainwashing worked

dmo · 04/12/2009 13:45

my boys have never had one and they are 12 and 13 now
we do have an advent calander that is made from mareral that you put your own stuff in and i use to put tree decorations in them so the boys got to put one on each day

Original poster
MoChan · 04/12/2009 13:48

Okay, also worried by the idea that we should be happy that people's/children's expectations change... nobody should be getting the Argos catalogue, should they...?

When people are STARVING, etc, etc?

OP posts:
nymphadora · 04/12/2009 13:51

I dont like that some go on to January. Whats that about?

slummymummy36 · 04/12/2009 13:52

I hate chocolate advent calendars! Well the ones that are HSM, Spiermand and totally NOT christamassy! May as well have one in July just for the hell of it IMO - why wait until christmas/December???

My kids get traditional picture ones from me which they are allowed at school (they board and thankfully Choccy ones are BANNED). A chocolate one from my MIL - usually, but not this year for some reason. They also have had bought for them a totally non christmassey marks and spencer jewellery one!! They are home this weekend so I am yet to see how tacky lovely the jewellery inside it will be!

When I was a child I had the same picture advent calendr year after year!! LOL My sister and I used to swap every year for a slight variation. It worked well I suppose, until one of us fed up with doors not staying closed, decided to stick them closed with some copydex!

pagwatch · 04/12/2009 14:01

I bloody hate the chocolate ones too.
My DCs get a traditional one and oddly enough they love them. They really do like seeing what the picture is. I am not sure why that is any stranger than a child being excited at getting a crappy bit of very poor quality chocolate every morning..

My DD was given a HSM one last year. The dog ate it but spat quite a bit of it out. Even dogs think that chocolate is shit.

SausageRocket · 04/12/2009 14:03

i couldn't give a monkeys frankly. Bigger fish to fry and all that

troutpout · 04/12/2009 14:05

Oh..it's just a bit of chocolate

My 2 have a pocket one that you fill up yourself.

I filled it up with cheese strings , greggs sausage rolls and fruit shoots

ObsidianBlackbirdMcNight · 04/12/2009 14:05

YANBU
I don't object too much to chocolate calendars that have pictures behind the chocolate, go up to xmas eve and have xmassy themes. What I object to is the 'secular' ones which go up to new year's eve, have a toy picture which is not related to xmas, and have nothing behind the chocolate. WTF are they about?

M&S have some lovely looking chocolate calendars, and oxfam had some nice ones. DS will probably end up with one of each when he's old enough to want one.

santaschristmascakeywakey · 04/12/2009 14:06

YABU - you can still get the (boring IMO ) picture calendar as well as chocolate ones, and there are lots of places selling the little drawer or pocket ones so you can choose what people have each day. It's nice to have a choice.

twoisplenty · 04/12/2009 14:06

Children open the advent calendar in the morning, no? So they are having chocolate first thing every morning in December - yuck!

PommePoire · 04/12/2009 14:07

I'm not sure if what you say is true, are they 'the norm'? But I agree that advent calendars should not be synonymous with chocolate or sweets. Chocolate eating at breakfast time on a daily basis is a poor habit to get into IMO, even if it does only last the month of December. In our house it's calendars with traditional pictures on the front and behind the doors. We use them to play a kind of 'I went to shops and I bought...' memory game, whereby the DCs try and remember the pictures in order: "I opened the doors and I found: a dove, a little drum, some gold, some myrh, a lamb" etc.

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