Advent calendars come in all different shapes and sizes these days. Gone are the days when all you get thin chocolate with Santa's face stamped on it. Now you can get everything from soaps to silks and from seeds to candles.
To get the Christmas season started here on the Create Perfect blog I wanted to run through a few of our favourite advent calendars available today.
As you will work out as our Christmas posts get going, something I love at Christmas is some good lighting - not just sparkle on the tree but dotted throughout the home. The above calendar is from Lights 4 Fun.
Hand-painted wooden drawers allow you to choose what festive treats you would like to use and the lit wooden scene has a calming winter wonderland feel to it. Featuring a handy timer, the calendar will automatically illuminate the warm white LEDs for 6 hours. Set the timer for early in the morning for a glow as you count down the days and open your calendar each morning.
Something different but very appealing and on-trend is this gorgeous stamping set. Use the combination of numbers and winter stamps (fir trees, icicles and more) to decorate your own paper or boxes and give a small individual numbered gift each day of advent.
If chocolate and gifts are not something you like to do for the days of advent, we also love this advent candle calendar from Ginger Ray. This advent calendar doubles up as a beautiful decoration as well as creating a warm cosy Christmas vibe each day in your home.
Whilst we all love some sparkle, I love that you can not also get a lot more personal with your advent calendars. Shown below, this example is a photo-printed chocolate advent calendar.
Choose your own image or series of images and just like creating a card with someone like Moonpig, you can customise your own calendar for yourself or a family member.
The advent Calendar for Gardeners and Nature Lovers is also something we see a lot at the moment. There are some amazing options out there but we have fallen for the calendar from Border in a box.
It contains 24 envelopes each with gardening-related gifts including a notebook (A6 size), wooden plant labels, Sowing Guides, tape measure, wooden tree ornament and recipe cards relating to the seed packets. The seeds include a mixture of Veg, Salad, Herbs and Flowers.
The calendar itself includes a 3m (approx) twine with 24 pegs to hang the envelopes from, plus the 24 envelopes.
Finally, going back to the traditional empty boxes you can fill, another firm favourite of mine so far this year, is the Ginger Ray fabric Christmas advent calendar kit with foliage. I love the wooden look with the hint of winter foliage - the bags are a good size and the piece looks wonderful in many rooms and styles.
What will you be going for this year?
Don't forget to check out our Pinterest account for more Christmas inspiration as the season approaches.