When the Surprise Just Isn’t Worth It
Is there anything more fun than an Advent calendar? It’s one of the best ways to recapture the childhood joy of Christmas, letting us adults treat ourselves to a little surprise every day. But some calendars are more bah-humbug than ho-ho-ho, and we’re here to relive some of the worst shocks we ever received.
1. Chanel
When you spend $800 on an Advent calendar, you expect something worth the price tag. However, a few years ago, Chanel ran away with people’s money. Instead of leaving high-quality items, our stockings were filled with stickers, magnets, and piddly pouches.
2. Christian Louboutin
Would you like to spend almost one thousand dollars on a few perfume samples? We didn’t think so, but plenty of other people were swindled by Christian’s games. In what was supposed to be a fun pinwheel of prizes, customers were left with an $800 price tag, some lipsticks, and tiny fragrances.
3. Sephora
People spent thousands—thousands!—of points trying to get this thing, and sure enough, it went viral for all the wrong reasons. Sephora is no stranger to awesome mini sets, but this calendar was only filled with disappointments: beauty blenders, pouches, and scrunchies.
4. Dior
Dior was all bark and no bite with their 2024 Advent calendar, a beautifully packaged item that contained a lot of the same product and sad sample sizes. A lot of beauty influencers shelled out the money for it, and they weren’t shy about voicing their upset.
5. Tony's Chocolonely
If you really want to capture the magic of Christmas, invest in a calendar filled with chocolate! That’s what plenty of parents thought with this option…only for them and their children to fall victim to the company’s statement: they deliberately left one calendar slot empty to highlight the inequality in the industry. People weren’t impressed, and the company apologized.
