What do you want in your advent calendar?

[audersandbaby]

Hello all,

Every year my mum buys me an advert calendar and the last couple of years have been the Look Fantastic one.

I saved last years and I’m redecorating it to a personalised one for my mum. I’m thinking of putting small gifts and little notes inside for every day.

She loves beauty products and jewellery. She likes the good brands and is quite obsessed with finding anything to help improve her wrinkles.

Any ideas of little things that would fit inside the boxes?

Money isn’t really a problem as long as each thing isn’t ridiculously expensive. Happy to get some pricier items mixed with cheaper too!

Nivea stuff for me. How big are the boxes?

Earrings
Charms - possibly a bracelet in the last box?
Ask at makeup counters for sample sizes of creams and perfumes
Individually wrapped expensive chocolates
Nail polish
Eye shadow
Tweezers and nail clippers
Individual tealights/votives/melts
Scratchcard or lottery ticket
Key ring
Flash drive/memory stick
Alcohol miniature

What a lovely idea! I’m sure she’ll really love it.

We do this every year because no matter how nice the pre-filled calendars are, I never love everything inside.

So perfect for me would be :

• Fragrance (small sample sizes from niche fragrance brands, or small travel size of my fav scent)
• Minis of luxury beauty products/ skin care , Cult Beauty are good for minis - but ones that reflect my own skin type, hair type (prob with beauty calendars is that they often contain things I wouldn’t wear or don’t suit my skin/hair)
• Posh coffee, tea, hot choc (found a few places selling ground coffee sample kits, each one makes a medium cafetière ; or a few Hotel Chocolat hot choc sachets )
• Lindt reindeers
• Booze miniature (something like really special Cognac for making a champagne cocktail, bonus point if the champagne for that day is chilling in the fridge! - but unlikely!)
• a little spice kit and a printed recipe for something (for something special and that I love)

What would make it really special for me is if the gift was tied in with what was happening on that day. So eg, a coffee on a Monday, maybe a booze miniature on a Saturday, a fragrance on the day of a big party etc, a lovely hand cream early in the month because my skin always gets so dry in winter and I’d like to start using a new one ASAP

Oh god you’re all good!

Great ideas, I’ll start searching online.

@TheLovelinessOfDemons they vary with some bigger than others but all could easily fit a travel bottle of something (ie 100ml). I remember one box had a full size Elemis cream too so as you can imagine, quite a good size!

@AskingSimilarQuestions wouldn’t have thought of lotto tickets, brilliant idea

@ChiaraMontague wonderful ideas, appreciate the time you took to help there!

Also, lip gloss/balm etc.

A hotel chocolate small selector pack
A single portion bottle of baileys
A bath bomb
Small bottle of bubble bath or even better shower oil
Bookshop voucher
Costa voucher
Sachet of hot chocolate

My family do this every year. For my mum I get
Earrings
Gin miniature
Last year was a Christmas themed mask
Small bottle of perfume
Nail care kit
Nail varnish
Hand cream
Pack of seeds for the garden
Chocolates
Small jar of preserves

One year I managed to get mini kitchen utensils as she has a caravan
Voucher for a massage

I do believe Elle magazine is giving away sample sizes of Benefit mascara in either this or the next issue.

Ooo great tip @Sn0tnose

I am so excited! I’ve been painting the box today, will decorate and start buying!

Home bargains have some great beauty bits for quite cheap.... dr paw paw tubes in a few colours for £1.99. Eos lip balms for a pound or two. Loads of hand/face/foot masks which you would have to roll up to fit in I'm guessing.

Tkmaxx soaps are fab...They come wrapped in fancy paper with little decorations on them.

Would a pair of socks rolled up be too big?

It's such a lovely idea.

You can buy Elemis small sizes on their website.

Earrings
necklace or charm for a bracelet
small bottle of fizz, booze, wine
socks
miniature perfume
voucher for books
decent pen
notebook or small diary (if A6 fits into it)

Oh thanks for the tip! @reluctantbrit
I’ll look at Elemis now