The holiday season comes with its own seasonal TikTok trends. In 2019, the big thing was the Christmas grenade. This year, it’s a holly jolly blizzard of advent calendars — some more controversial than others.
My For You page has been full of people popping open advent calendars since December started. Maybe I’ve found myself drawn to them because I wasn’t a kid who grew up with advent calendars. My parents had zero interest in the idea of letting us have chocolate every single day1 so I never actually had my own until I was an adult and my girlfriend reminded me I was perfectly allowed to get one.
This year I’m counting down with a humble grocery store calendar filled with mediocre chocolate, but TikTok has shown me they can get much more elaborate but also much more scammy. Like the Chanel advent calendar, for example.
Chanel’s advent calendar costs $825 whole American dollars, which is cheap for something from Chanel but expensive for a thing that exists. It is also, it turns out, a giant disappointment.
TikToker creator @eliseharmon bought the Chanel calendar and began opening it on Dec. 52 only to reveal such cheap tat as stickers and plastic keychains.
Okay yes there are a few beauty products in there too, but most of them are sample size, like the kind you can probably get just by being nice to whoever is working the counter.
In fairness Chanel lists the contents of the calendar on their website, but looking that up arguably defeats the entire purpose of buying what should be a daily surprise.
Regardless, the subsequent roasting by Elise and others made headlines for the whole thing and a Chanel spokesperson talked about the “mythical silhouette” of Chanel N°5 in a statement to People. He also told Women’s Wear Daily the whole thing was a “a bit of a shame” and they they’d be more cautious in the future.
Which, lol, ok Chanel. Luxury brands are well-known for making “affordable” versions of their goods that are lower quality, covered in more logos, and sort of a way to give the less rich an entry point they otherwise wouldn’t have. The selling point of a $825 advent calendar isn’t to have a genuine luxury product, but to feel adjacent to luxury3 for a little moment every day. Which I’m not defending — it says a lot about the rich gatekeep their little world.
But there are certainly scammier advent calendars out there. My For You page has brought me a bevy of scamtastic calendars that are offering much funnier surprises than some branded stickers. In fact I suspect there’s a market out there of people making total crap and calling it a calendar.
By far the funniest I’ve seen is this supposed Dungeons and Dragons calendar. It inexplicably came with a Seahawks(!) wrapper and contains such goodies as not one, but two Smurfs and this first aid doggo.
I browsed around Amazon and Etsy a bit and there are pleeenty of advent calendars out there that are actually just Aliexpress tchotchkes repackaged and overpriced for your enjoyment.
But there’s also just a lot of advent calendars out there, generally. I found ones on TikTok themed around:
Other luxury brands like Dior and Saint Laurent
About a million other beauty brands
You get it. The list goes on.
It’s not surprising that every brand is lining up to make one. If you grew up with the chocolate ones, there’s a thrill to reviving the nostalgia but with more interesting or adult-oriented items.
What is more interesting is how many people seem to enjoy watching other people opening them, myself included. The hashtag #adventcalendar has 1.4 billion views on the app and I get it. I’m a sucker for a little anticipation and surprise, even if it’s second-hand. I genuinely want a cheese one for next year.
But the real hero here isn’t everyone opening their calendars. As I usually find on TikTok, it’s my mentally ill comrades who have perfected the trend.
There’s also this one about how pill organizers are basically advent calendars you get to use every single week.
Thanks for reading and may the holidays bless you with an appropriate amount of serotonin.
Yes, I had a typical ‘90s mom who filled my brain with diet culture. No mom, we’re not ready to talk about it.
It starts on the fifth as a reference to the perfume which RUINS THE FUN.
I had a phase where I coveted Marc by Marc Jacobs purses COVERED in the logo because they made me feel fancy. They now sit unused in my closet.