You can easily spend a small fortune on advent calendars these days, but should you? Read on and we’ll reveal the (very strong) opinion of the DaddiLife community.
Christmas is coming and many families mark the occasion and build excitement for the big day with an advent calendar.
Advent calendars used to be simple affairs, often reflecting the religious significance of the season. Each morning from 1st December to Christmas Eve, children would open a little cardboard window and be presented with…a tiny picture of a candle. Fun was different back then.
Sugar and spice
Today, those old-fashioned advent calendars can seem like a dying breed. Type ‘advent calendar’ into Google and the first line of ads features calendars costing between £80 and £90. Admittedly these appear to be advent calendars for grown-ups, but then when (and indeed why) did that become a thing?
Even for kids, what you can’t get away from is advent calendars full of chocolate and sweets. Your favourite sugar merchants, from Haribo to Cadbury, all produce calendars full of teeth-rotting treats – just in case your kids won’t be getting enough of that sort of thing at Christmas.
Advent of toys
But while chocolate calendars have become commonplace, the new kids on the calendar block are those offering toys and collectibles. Hatchimals is flogging a calendar full of ‘collectible things’ for around £25. This Lego version goes for a couple of quid less. Playmobil is up there too. If you have a couple of kids that’s nearly £50 spent before you’ve even bought a cracker.
Dads will make their own minds up about whether these are worth it or not, but there seems to be two points of view. For some parents, a £25 advent calendar full of toys is an ideal way to start building the excitement of Christmas. For others, it’s a way to blow money and create unrealistic expectations at the same time. After all, children might reasonably see £25 on an advent calendar and assume the sky’s the limit when it comes to proper presents. And isn’t that a recipe for stress?
If you have a couple of kids that’s nearly £50 spent before you’ve even bought a cracker
Luxury calendars
You can spend a lot more than that if you really want to, and potentially justify it by calling it ‘art’ or ‘education’. This calendar comes with 24 rather attractive nature posters, but will set you back nearly £60. This one mixes quality chocolate and animal puzzles and costs £65.
Some of the more expensive calendars are undoubtedly beautiful and well made, but are they worth it? The answer from the DaddiLife community is pretty unanimous.
The DaddiLife poll
We didn’t ask about specific calendars, of course. We simply asked our community of dads what they thought was acceptable to spend on an advent calendar for the kids. There was just two choices. Would they happily spend over £10? Or is £10 the limit of what they’d splash out? The results were:
- Over £10 – 12%
- Under £10 – 88%
So that’s pretty unanimous.
Nearly 9 out of ten of our dads do not think it acceptable to spend more than £10 on an advent calendar.
We think that’s perfectly understandable. Christmas is already an expensive time. Kids will get their fill of sweets and gifts regardless of what they get in their advent calendars. Perhaps this is one area of the Christmas orgy of spending and consumption that we can all do without? After all, you can always make your own.
