Five, four, three, two and one. As the days pass and the seconds tick down, do you watch the clock? Can you make it move quicker if you stare at it for long enough? The holidays are approaching, so perhaps an advent calendar will help to while away the time.
Some students at the school certainly think so. Zoe Huang (12) even has a countdown app on her phone to commemorate special events in her life.
“On my phone, I have the countdown app so you can set the date and sometimes the time [for events],” Huang said. “I set one for my birthday, I set one for the Common Application deadline … I set one for my last football game. I also set one for graduation and those kinds of things. I like counting down to important life events because it also reminds me to not wish my time away and be more present I think.”
Huang is a teacher’s assistant for Teaching and Learning and AP Psychology teacher Lynn Leahy, who bought her TAs the 12 Days of Beauty advent calendar from Trader Joe’s.
“[Opening the advent calendar] feels like a dopamine hit almost,” Huang said. “It’s something to look forward to everyday. I know the reason why [Leahy] got them for us was because she said ‘Ok last push, I need you guys to be here.’ It becomes a little event every morning. We call her over and we do the reveal. It’s just a really small, fun thing to look forward to everyday.”
It seems universal that feelings of enjoyment arise from opening up each new gift in an advent calendar. Christopher Bacon (9) is even implementing an advent calendar into his daily morning routine.
“So I have one currently right now and it’s a very fun experience because you don’t know what you’re going to get, especially what the brand is,” Bacon said. “Now there’s so many different types of calendars. I have a chocolate one from Lindor. So, every morning it’s a new little ball or a bar and it’s really fun.”
Bacon is right about the large variety that the holiday calendar market offers at present. All over social media, influencers are receiving brands’ advent calendars and reviewing them online. Notable calendars are from companies such as Sephora, Lego and e.l.f., and franchises like Peanuts, Star Wars and Miffy.
Despite the myriad of options, accounting, marketing and Spanish 2 teacher Rafael Ancona said that “just because [he] got an advent calendar for one particular area” it would not “dissuade [him] from being excited about getting one for a different segment.”
Brands use a simple technique to market their advent calendars during the holiday season, according to Ancona.
“It seems like a pretty traditional bundling tactic where… [companies] have these various products and you give the consumer a volume discount, so the more they buy the cheaper the individual unit price will be,” Ancona said.
This explains the abundance of advent calendar options in the U.S. today, however it is not the case in other countries.
“They’re playing off of the Christian tradition of Advent…the days leading up to Christmas…in the west, being a majority Christian population, [companies] kind of play off of that,” Ancona said. “Christmas is obviously a big cultural time in the west, even for nonreligious people. It’s a way to capitalize on the cultural significance of this big holiday.”
Advent calendars tend to be a make or break for companies. If it goes well, customers are inspired to buy other products from the brand. If an advent calendar flops, however, it can reflect poorly on the company.
“There’s relatively low risk to something like a box of chocolates,” Ancona said. “But if you’re buying this 12 days of beauty or whatnot, I’m assuming that can be a significant investment. I don’t know how likely consumers would be to buy … if they don’t know what they’re going to be getting. I would assume that companies would be more willing to talk about what potential products they’ll get in the advent calendar as prices increase.”
The risk is worth the reward for these companies when customers become interested in the experience their advent calendar products offer.
“It makes everything more fun and it puts everything into perspective of how soon something is because we all want Christmas to happen for the break and we think it’s that long but it’s not that far so it’s good to countdown, only ten days left,” Bacon said.
Bacon goes as far to say that “it doesn’t really matter what [the product] is” because it is simply “something new each day, something to look forward to.”
