Blogmas Day 1: All the advent calendars you NEED

It's the first of December! Welcome to Blogmas. I'm dedicating so much of my time this month to really make sure I get a post out every day, I love doing Christmas themed posts and this year I've really planned out some exciting ones I can't wait to get posted. But today we're starting with a December 1st tradition. It is not the start of December unless you're cracking open a cardboard door of an advent calendar for the first of many treats counting you down to Christmas.

Over the past few years advent calendars have broadened out from the usual tacky chocolate pieces to beauty ones, jewellery, candles, alcohol themed calendars... and the list gets longer and longer every year. This year I've compiled a few of these "alternative" advent calendar that caught my attention, and wow there are some interesting ones out there. I kinda want them all.

Starting with a vegan chocolate advent calendar, "Waitrose" do this fairly cheap one, as the vegan ones tend to have the common theme of being ridiculously expensive. It's also free from soya too.

The beauty ones however, have always been my go to ones, I've had a Liz Earle one in the past which I loved, but beauty advent calendars get ridiculously expensive very quickly. I found "this one" from debenhams which includes products from a variety of high end-ish brands. It's an upmarket one, sold at £90, but is definitely one of the advent calendars that is worth it's money, if you were willing to spend that much. Some branded beauty ones are going for around £200.

Aldi have a cheaper version using it's own skin care brand Lacura, this is sold for £14.99 "here" I have never tried the Lacura brand but have heard good things from it, they have a knock off Pixi glow tonic in this advent calendar which was what caught my attention.

Another skin care brand I like is The Body Shop advent calendars, which are slightly more upmarket again, these are all sold out though unfortunately.

Soap and glory are doing one this year that looks really good! It's really good value for money at only  £28, link for that is "here"

My favourite ever brand LUSH brought out an advent calendar this year, unfortunately it was quite expensive (at £195) and sold out. Here's a photo of it anyway because it looks so epic.

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Another brand I love, who have the most beautiful aesthetic is Cath Kidston, they are selling a calendar through boots at just £26.66, which can be bought "here" it looks so cute!

Aldi are selling a few advent calendars this year, I'm sharing this wine one, as alcohol calendars can get really pricey as well. Even this one is £50, but I love the look of it! "Here" it the link for for it

Gin advent calendars seem to be the most loved that I've seen so far. I've seen some ridiculously expensive ones, Aldi ones, Gordon's ones. But I think this one here that I've found the best. This one is £60, it comes with 12 gins and 12 fever tree tonics, I love gin, but I love gin because of the different flavours you can create by using different tonics. I'm not much of a flavoured gin person so this advent calendar seems perfect for me. It also makes it a bit more interesting than just gin, and is cheaper than most gin calendars. Link "here"

This one got me the most excited when I came across it. I think it's genius! A Kellogg's cereal advent calendar that comes with a mug-bowl. I love this! It retails at only £20 from "Debenhams"

This is one that also excited me, I wish I'd been paid to get myself this one. I love tea, and all the different kinds of teas you can get. This advent from Pukka is such a great idea and has an amazing selection of flavours. You can get it from boots, or "amazon"

This is another ingenious idea! Paper chase have brought out their own advent calendar on all the stationary goodness! As well as tea, I am a massive stationary lover, collector and obsessor. It's not too badly priced either considering paper chase is a relatively expensive shop. Link for this advent calendar is "here"

This one is for the pets. Lily's kitchen do both cat and dog advent calendars. Obviously as a crazy cat lady the cat one really excited me. It's not too bad at £10 either. Link "here"

I also found this cheaper cat advent calendar in Aldi which is only £1.99!!! Link for that one is "here" but I'd be quick on getting that one, every time I go onto the Aldi website I'm left in a queue because there are too many people on the site!

I'll leave this post here before I get too carried. There are some amazing advent calendars out this year and I wish I could have them all. 

This was a fun post to write, to kick start off Blogmas. I am so excited for this month. I also start my new job tomorrow, so here's to a good month, an amazing Christmas, and way too many blog posts.

Shan x