I start thinking about Advent in August. In our house, it’s more treasured than Christmas itself and the tradition has evolved so elaborately that we now have morning and evening calendars, such is the desire to outdo one another in the micro-gifting stakes. When you have young children who relentlessly ask if its nearly Christmas, advent isn’t just a month of mini treats - it’s a necessary daily decoy that helps you stay sane until December 24th (when all bets are off).
I was never allowed a chocolate advent calendar growing up, my mother insisted on the paper variety (now fashionable again). Eight-year-old me would have preferred sugar to tasteful drawings of Victorian robins, and throughout my childhood, I resented being the only kid in the class who hadn’t started the day with a hit of Cadbury’s. Which might excuse my tendency towards excess nowadays. And although luxury advent calendars are fabulously decadent and increasingly exquisite objects in their own right, my preference is to curate the calendars myself. Perhaps because I love themes and collections, the idea of assembling twenty-four tiny things each year, for each person, brings me great joy in the planning and making.
It is really my boyfriend who started this tradition, having grown up with a cardboard box that became a lucky dip in December, filled with random and chaotic items – bulbs for the garden, some pencils, a blowtorch. These things were unrelated, often confusing, and always wonderful. If you’ve never given someone a new roll of Sellotape or a sachet of Angel Delight, you don’t know how to live. Sometimes it is the smallest things that are gifting GOLD.
It was natural then, that during his first festive season in my life, he introduced me this radical new approach to advent, eschewing all commercial offerings and kicking off with a delivery of Joneses Crumpets at dawn on the 1st December. He progressed to include personalised marmite, candle grip, Sally Clarke mince pies (the best in the business), a large packet of Quavers (also the best in the business), floristry frogs, Claridges matches from 1920, a pamphlet about cults and vintage silver stars from a stationer in Paris (I’m a sucker for approval).
His approach is playful, sentimental and hopelessly romantic. His gifts speak to my whims and ambitions, my temporary crazes and everlasting loves (for example, a book on Big Macs and Burgundy which must surely have been published with an audience of me alone in mind). There’s always a tree decoration, a half bottle of champagne (the most generous kind, given without the intention of sharing) and a large bunch of mistletoe, for obvious reasons. It is very hard to wrap mistletoe.
In contrast, last year, my theme for him was Extremely Domestic Items. The highlight was air freshener pellets for the vacuum cleaner (£7.99 Robert Dyas). For context, the guts of our hoover has a squalid smell I’ve never managed to shift, I wonder if there’s a rotting mice carcass in there or something equally sinister? Either way, imagine my delight at discovering these ingenious little life hacks?
In previous years, I’ve embraced other equally exotic themes. My boyfriend loves nuts. No, really. It’s an incredibly boring special interest but he does have other redeeming qualities (see above). For Nut Advent, I did struggle to find enough interesting and charming nutty purchases. It took commitment and creativity once I’d exhausted all the obvious (KP, Nutcracker, Aesop Camelia Nut Facial Hydrating Cream), I had to resort to Nutchup (Nut Ketchup, unopened, still in the fridge), a book on the history of nuts (why?) and a slogan T Shirt proclaiming “May Contain Nuts” (I was desperate).
I’ve had better years. There was Pudding Advent for my son, presented each night with a flourish of a silver cloche, camply engraved at Timpson’s with “A Feast of Advents for Kit, Christmas 2022”. Sometimes he got lucky with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and sometimes it was just a yoghurt, slightly approaching its sell by date.
Another hit year was Meat Advent. This was a family affair because it was basically supper, rebranded. It came with a hand illustrated menu, stuck to the fridge, and involved an introduction to a variety of new meats including Kangaroo sausage, a duck à l’orange and plenty of dubious pies. During this era, Kit memorised all twelve steak cuts listed in the Quality Chop House cookbook; it was definitely a phase. But the party game “name that steak” remains a favourite, even today.
For my mother, I’ve gathered a Haberdashery Advent. She makes all the textiles for our dolls houses so scraps of vintage fabric, fine silk embroidery threads from Maison Sajou, patches from Hand & Lock make for a fine selection.
Some years are busier than others, which is when Commemorative Coins Advent comes in handy (on subscription, so you squirrel them away all year, feeling very smug until you inevitably forget to cancel the direct debit). I’ve opted for Flower Fairies and Star Wars coins, both beautifully and substantially rendered. In general, Advent gifts work best when they are edible or everlasting.
As with all the great traditions, you have to pass it on, and last year, for the first time 13-year-old Kit took charge of his 3-year-old sister’s presents. He carefully wrapped each of his formerly beloved Maileg mice (and their various accessories) in different coloured tissue papers and regifting them to her in a Coco & Wolf patchwork which hangs from her door at a suitably inaccessible height. This is a very practical approach - it clears space in the loft and tarts up a hand-me-down situation that would happen anyway; everyone’s a winner. But she preferred his other concept: Fruit and Vegetable Advent! Because Bunny is a person who delights in the natural world and is rarely found playing with toys when there’s an apple or a broccoli available. She sleeps with pumpkins in her cot and foliage under her pillow. Wooden varieties will not do, they must be the real thing and so Kit decided that each day he would bring her home unusual fruits and vegetables to widen her horticultural horizons. There’s an excellent corner shop on his way home from school that supplied all manner of grocery gems and although the presentation lacked charm (his rucksack), the results were euphoric.
Half the joy is, of course, in the packaging. I’m not claiming I can compete with Diptyque’s masterful cardboard engineering or Liberty’s whimsical facades, but I do know how to put things in a bag. These days those bags are embroidered with the recipients’ initials, loved as much as the Santa sacks bought out year after year.
An empty advent calendar is a sad sight but if you’ve ever been in possession of a really posh one, you’ll know it’s impossible to throw them away. Repurposing them with your own selection of stuff is very satisfying – last year, just when my family’s interest in Dollshouses was at its inception, I took an ancient Jo Malone townhouse and made a Miniatures Advent. It was a crowd pleaser, containing brass trumpets, Christmas puddings the size of a five pence pieces and more practical items like wallpaper paste and the Hobbies catalogue. I felt vindicated that I’d been storing that cardboard shell for over a decade.
You must know someone really well to make them a corker of an Advent. That’s the wonderful thing, it allows you to indulge in the ultimate personalisations. It can accommodate very specific obsessions, crazy fads and even gentle points in the right direction (revision cards for one child, a potty-training reward chart for the other, a magnum of Sherry for me). I think twenty-four little things have more capacity for intimacy than one shiny statement Christmas Day present. I love the low-risk aspect (ok he didn’t love the DIY eyelash dyeing equipment but tomorrow’s another day) and moments when gifts of great thoughtfulness are given within the unceremonious flurry of the morning routine. It’s a record of where you are now – this month, this moment in time where your daughter’s favourite toy is a mouldy old cauliflower, or your son wears so many enamel badges on his school blazer that he walks lopsided. With advent, the opportunity for range is significant, but you can evoke equally ecstatic responses with old heirloom photographs, lottery scratch cards, tickets to something (Letters Live is always a great bet) or a sleigh bell from Polar Post. I’ve received presents that have made me cry (a picture from the Lee Miller archive) or that started a new obsession or rekindled an old one. I’ve been blindfolded and taken to a curry house. And I’m still carefully ekeing out a pot of gold leaf from 2018.
I am pretty sure that when they’re grown up, my children won’t solidly remember the Lego somethings Santa dutifully delivers every year. But they might remember the in-jokes, the sense of occasion and the extra layering of love that they enjoy every day of each December. I know I will.
And honestly, after all this effort, my top tip is to stealth buy yourself a luxury calendar in the sale and give yourself January advent – it really does brighten up the darkest of new year mornings.
