Advent calendar for adults: 24 days that aren't about chocolate

The Advent calendar did not start out as a container for sweets. In nineteenth-century German families, twenty-four chalk lines were drawn on the door frame, and every morning the children wiped one away. There was nothing behind it. The point was simply to see how much was still left to go.

Then came chocolate, and the calendar slowly changed. Today most Advent calendars are about eating something twenty-four times. That is not a problem in itself – but when adults buy one for themselves, it is rarely for the chocolate.

What an adult looks for in an Advent calendar

Usually the same thing the chalk lines gave: a daily pause. December is the busiest month of the year, full of deadlines, year-end closings and organising. The Advent calendar is the one custom that claims thirty seconds every morning in which we do nothing at all.

Those thirty seconds are the point. Not what's in the drawer.

When the contents matter too

If there is something inside, though, it is worth choosing something that does not vanish without a trace. That is why we built our Advent package so that every day brings two things: a handmade gingerbread and a single sentence.

It contains twenty-four separate boxes, each with one gingerbread and a hidden satin ribbon. The message is on the ribbon itself and only becomes visible when you pull it out – until then you cannot see what it says. All twenty-four messages are different, drawn from the words of Christian saints and thinkers.

Each gingerbread has two small slits at the top. They are not decoration: the ribbon runs through them, which is why they can be hung on the tree. So by the twenty-fourth of December the calendar has become Christmas tree decorations – twenty-four of them, hung up together.

The Advent package is twenty-four pauses, not twenty-four bites.

When to start thinking about it

For most people this is the real question, and the answer comes earlier than you might think.

An Advent calendar is opened on the first of December. That means it needs to be there by the last week of November at the latest – and even earlier if it is a gift, since it also has to be handed over. With handmade products, moreover, quantities are not unlimited: maturing the gingerbread and packing it by hand cannot be hurried.

In practice, this means that anyone who starts looking in November is choosing from what is left. Anyone who starts in October chooses what they actually want.

How to use it so that it really works

A few things that help a lot:

Give it a place. If you have to look for it somewhere different every day, it stops after three days. A shelf, a tray, the windowsill – it doesn't matter, as long as it's always the same one.

Give it a time. In the morning with your coffee, or in the evening before bed. The time of day matters less than not having to decide about it.

Don't catch up. If you miss a day, you miss it. People who try to make up three days at once usually give up.

Put the ribbons on display. The sentences are worth something when they can be seen. Many people lay them out side by side on a shelf, and by the end of the month they form a whole row.

Giving it as a gift

An Advent calendar makes a good gift because it gives not one moment but twenty-four. It has one catch, though: it needs to arrive by the first of December, so it has to be handed over well before the usual Christmas gift-giving. It is worth planning for this.

To those buying for a family, we usually say that the twenty-four boxes can be shared: no one has to work through them alone. Two children taking turns, or the whole family together – it is no less for that.

The Advent package costs €92.12; shipping within Hungary is free, and to Austria and Germany it is €36.37. We have gathered our Christmas gift ideas on a separate page, and you will find other occasions on the Occasions page.

What remains at the end of the month

On the twenty-fourth of December the box is empty. But twenty-four pieces of gingerbread hang on the tree, and twenty-four sentences sit on the shelf. Next year the gingerbread will be gone – the ribbons will not.

That was the intention. If, next December, someone takes out a ribbon they pulled the year before, the calendar has done what it set out to do.