Our Final Pick! Christmas 2016 Advent Calendars for Smix, Me, & for Mrs Meow!

We are so excited for Christmas! These two rascals are sorted for advent calendars, and my choice has just arrived too. So let's have a look at 2016's picks for the World of Kitsch household. 

Duvet from Asda online

Duvet from Asda online

Smix picked the Tesco Hot Wheels calendar. I bought it for £15 last week in store, but it appears to be £12 this week on the website.

Behind the doors are 8 cars and the rest of the days are fun Christmas accessories to pair with the vehicles. 

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The second calendar is one for us to share, which I won via a competition on the fabulous, local, culinary website Eating Ideas (check them out if you don't know them already).

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It's the Hotel Chocolat Truffels for Two calendar, which costs £26 & which has two mini chocolates for each day.

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Mrs Meow's calendar is next, and a rarer find than a doggy advent, it's a cat treat calendar from Lidl which cost £4.99 Its pretty hefty though.  The contents look kibbly, and I'm hoping she will eat them, you never know with her.

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Last is my own choice, and rather than go for a makeup advent calendar this year I splashed out on the  Sanctuary Let Go Days of Christmas advent. It costs £25 and it's packed with travel size minis of their top products, and home fragrance items too. I buy from the range throughout the year, so I'm looking forward to finding some new favourites.

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It's another hefty calendar, but the £25 price tag is softened by the fact it's included in the yearly Boots 3 for 2 Christmas gift offer. So I bought two similarly priced presents for other people and then got the calendar 'free' as it were. Merry Christmas to myself!

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So which calendar are you after? The only other one that's tempting me is the £250-worth M&S Beauty calendar, which you can get for £35 when you spend £35 in store on home or clothing. If any of you get that, I will be so envious! 

Pork Scratchings, Beard Oil, Tattoos & More: The Alternative Bunch of Adult Advent Calendars

Some weird and wonderful alternatives to chocolate, toy or beauty advent calendars, all on  Not On The High Street.

Pork scratchings

Pork scratchings

Beard oil

Beard oil

Ales

Ales

Ales

Ales

Tea

Tea

Chocolate sprouts

Chocolate sprouts

Seeds

Seeds

Beers

Beers

Temporary tattoos

Temporary tattoos

Biscuits

Biscuits

Charm bracelet

Charm bracelet

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Tea

Tea

Beer

Beer

Candles

Candles

Fortune cookie

Fortune cookie

Train set

Train set

Pillow

Pillow

Liquorice  

Liquorice  

tea

tea

Coffee

Coffee

family sized chocolates

family sized chocolates

To Me, Beauty Advent Calendars are Akin to Adult Colouring Books- A Sign of End Times. However It's an Apocalypse I Want to Be Part of. Gordon's Chemist £6.99 Beauty Calendar- Go Go Go!

I hadn't bought myself a beauty calendar this year. I often wonder are advent calendars for adults a sign of the decline of our species, but with beauty, candle & even gin calendars available, it's something I want to be part of.

On a single parent budget I can't throw £25-£30 at a calendar for me, so I only had a £1 chocolate calendar from Tiger Stores this year.

I popped into Gordon's Chemist with a prescription today and one of their special offers this weekend is this beauty calendar for £6.99.  

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Gordon's Direct, their web store had it on offer too, down from £14.99 to £8.99, but they are sold out. If you fancy getting one of these yourselves this weekend I would advise ringing your local store to check for stock. 

Its all budget makeup, but when some nail polishes alone cost £12, a whole calendar of 24 products for £6.99 is a bargain.

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It Took Me Two Hours to Put Together Smix's Advent Calendar... Was It Worth It?

As a product blog this is a bit useless, as I bought this in Lidl about a month ago and I think they sold out. Plus I can't even recall the price! Either £5.99 or £6.99? That seems a lot, when they don't come with contents, but even after they've been opened you are left with a very cute Christmas village that can be reused year after year. 

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So, this morning I set about building the 24 houses. They are all the same shape, so once you get going you speed up, but it still took me two hours. Perhaps if there are two of you making them, 12 each, it would be faster, but I just stuck Netflix on and got folding. 

You have 24 sheets of housing, which are double sided, so you can alternate, or choose an all brown or all blue themed village. You've also gold stickers for numbering the houses and ribbon. 

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As with most of these type of craft builds, you'll find it a lot easier if you pre-bend the folds before you try to fashion it together. 

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The houses are a good size. I don't want to give away all the contents, but I was able to fit trinkets from Tiger Stores inside, sweets, small sets of battery powered Christmas lights from Poundland etc. 

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They actually take up a lot more room than I anticipated. Only the first ten days fitted on the mantelpiece. I don't think I will keep all of them for displays next year. Probably just a selection of whichever ones don't get ripped to bits with the excitement of getting to the insides! 

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What Advent Calendar Do You Have This Year?

Its a real sign that we are the generation that never really grew up, that we now can buy advent calendars to hang aside our children's calendars. I have a Yankee Candle Tealight one this year, which means I can light one each evening to add extra special festive scent to my living room.

 

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If you visit the Yankee Candle UK webstore, they have daily deals on the countdown until the 25th. Check out what bargains they have today.

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