(If you care, here’s an interesting history of Advent calendars.) Regardless, there are a lot more Advent calendars than there once were. In the ~70 years since, Advent calendars have proliferated, setting new Guinness World Records for price and size, among other things. Advent calendars have been common in the United States since President Eisenhower popularized them while being photographed opening an Advent calendar with his grandchildren. If you didn’t like candy, too bad (every kid likes candy, so it worked out). It was filled with little pieces of candy. Back in my day, they only made like one Advent calendar, and every kid had that. The good news is that every possible Advent calendar you can possibly imagine, exists. (Admittedly, half of the motivation for this post is sharing the Advent calendars I’ve found…the other half is soliciting feedback from seasoned parents about which ones your kids love.) Not only that, but we take tons of photos of every little thing she does, and opening Advent calendars seems like a modest milestone. We know that it’s not like she’ll remember, but we will. That unprecedented level of awesome could be dangerous and have unforeseen consequences.Īll joking aside, I actually have been doing a lot of Advent calendar research– probably too much–wanting to make Megatron’s first Christmas as special as possible. Perhaps they’re worried that would sell out too quickly, or there would be stampedes in stores. And sadly, the stakes can’t be that high since the powers that be keep refusing to make Country Bear Christmas or Figment (or, better yet, Country Bear Christmas and Figment) Advent calendars. Now, the stakes are so much higher…but still pretty low given that this is only an Advent calendar we’re talking about. We didn’t always remember to open a window each day–it was more just a thing to do to get into the spirit of the season. While we’ve done Advent calendars to count down to Christmas before, it was one thing when it was just the two of us. This holiday season for us is all about creating new traditions.

Happy christmas tree cartoon