Christmas calendars

The Christmas calendar/advent calendar market really exploded this year, didn't it? Seems like every single brand or store made their own ones this year.

For once I actually felt like I had to limit myself, instead of just buying the ones I found interesting.

I had to pick them myself, since Hubby didn't provide me with a Christmas calendar this year. Pout. 

Christmas calendars are an important Christmas tradition for me, since this is what I grew up with. Hubby and I have had to do some work on incorporating our sets of Christmas traditions. Traditional foods and celebrations are definitely not the same. Neither the things you just "do" up to Christmas.

It's actually a little funny how many different traditions you find in Denmark, compared to Sweden. Maybe it's because of the many islands, which would naturally limit how things spread back in old times. Sweden is more of one, uniform landmass, so maybe that's why their traditions are more the same?

Of course hubby went with the "All I want for Christmas is you"-approach, which earns him lots of credit, but no Christmas calendar.

But when he saw what I had ordered for myself, he suddenly felt left out.

So, a few hours of work later, and Hubby was very pleased. Even a few harsh words about being a dumbass who won't just admit that why yes, I would like a calendar, thank you, how considerate of you couldn't wipe the smug look off his face. Jerk.

A nice luxury liquorice calendar for Hubby. I never encountered the brand before, but it was quite pricey, so I hope it's good!

Kinder chocolate barely counts as real chocolate, but yea, this is a guilty pleasure for both of us. I know Hubby will share!

I randomly found another liquorice calendar for Hubby. They had in the the Danish Netto-stores. It's a soft, not-really-salty, not-really-sweet-either liquorice that both Hubby and I love. Hubby was the smuggest about this one. Luckily, it has both the original and the seasalt ones and Hubby doesn't like the seasalt ones, so those are mine. Muahahah! 

Finally, Hubby also got an advent calendar with a few grooming products.

His last set turned out to contain so much aloe vera that I can't kiss or snuggle him after using them, without me breaking out and my skin feeling like it was burned. Ouch!

It amuses me how "advent calendar" and "Christmas calendar" seems to be used at random. 

In Danish, an "advent calendar" is exclusively for being given on the last 4 Sundays (Which are the four advents) until Christmas, and "Christmas calendar" is for the first 24 days of December. No exceptions allowed.

My first calendar is the Lookfantastic Advent Calendar that just looked so beautiful I had to have it. This was also the most expensive one.

It did not disappoint in real life!

This Christmas calendar is for 25 days since it's UK-based. 

However, I do not recommend Lookfantastic. It took them well over 14 days from me ordering and paying, to receiving the first part of the order. And that was all items that supposedly were in stock! WTF.

Here's an unboxing video of it.With so many unboxing videos out there already, so I guess there isn't much of a point to make any unboxing-posts, is there?

The second calendar is the one I'm the most excited about!

Lumene is one of those few brands where I can honestly say "I like that brand" and not just "I like a lot of their products". Even my beloved COSRX has a heavily aloe vera'ed line that I wouldn't even want to touch the packaging of.

Lumene is skincare for Scandinavians by Scandinavians, so it works well with my sensitive skin. (Did you know that 10% of native Scandinavians have allergies to fragrance?) I started using it some years back with good results, but it was right before I found Korean skincare (Back in... 2013? 2014?) and transitioned exclusively to that. I guess there isn't any reason to not incorporate some Western products as long as I still use the Eastern methods and techniques, right? 

So when I randomly found in the bloggosphere that they had made a calendar this year for the first time, I had to have it! It's sold online and exclusively at Åhlens, so it might not be so easy for non-Scandinavians to get.

Look at it: So pretty! Clean and stylish. It looks so very grownup.

The unboxing video is in Swedish. Sorry. Can't find one in English!

The next one is Skinstores 12 miracles of beauty. They sold me on a spoiler: That the calendar would contain a Foreo-product. I have wanted a Foreo (Any model really) for some years now, but never really got around to buying one. 

Well, here it is! Somewhere in one of the little drawers...

However I am quite pissed off at Skinstore: I bought my calendar at 149 USD and the week after, they dumped the price to 99.
Not. Cool.

Between Skinstores endless spam-mails and now this, Skinstore have earned themselves an unsubscribe from their maillist and a removal from my bookmarks.

At least the calendar is really pretty.

Again: So many unboxing videos out there already! Here's one.

Hubby and I got into a pretty interesting discussion about this.

He asked me when I had intended to open it, since it doesn't add up to the 24 days of Christmas of traditional Danish and Swedish Christmas calendars. I shrugged and said I had assumed I would just open it on the last 12 days. Hubby then pointed out that it probably refers to the 12 days of Christmas, beginning the day where most people celebrate Christmas (December 25th) and ending on January 5th. Hubby explained there is a old Swedish tradition of counting the 13 days of Christmas (Since Sweden celebrates on December 24th like a lot of other countries) so the span of celebration becomes the same. This is traditionally the day to remove all your Christmas decorations in Sweden.

I thought this was pretty cool, and decided to start opening this calendar on the 25th.

Then I felt a little sorry for Hubby for not having a 12 days calendar of his own (Even though he has been super annoying and smug about his own Christmas and Advent calendars!), so I secretly slipped little fun-sized chocolate bars into the drawers. Now Hubby is part of this too, and maybe we have established a new family tradition.

The last Christmas calendar I fell for, is Rituals.

Their products always smell really good. Just passing by their stores makes me sniff the air furiously. Of course I mostly stay clear of (Heavily) scented products, but rinse-off products seems to be okay. Some bath and shower products would be great! 

It came in a really pretty, classy box. Dark green and red with gold print.
It smells really good too. Usually mixing so many different scents together result in a weird mix, but this smells really nice!

It had some silly cardboard decoration-parts though.

You're supposed to put it together into a Christmas-tree shape, with the sides and toppers. I did not care for it.

I prefer the box just like it is. It's pretty enough as it is, without the silly extra pieces sticking out.

Here's an unboxing video.

Rituals also have a seriously pretty deluxe-version in a "real" Christmas tree shape. I couldn't find one in a physical store and didn't feel like ordering it online, so I picked the "regular" version.