24 days of chocolate
Filed Under Stuff | November 27, 2007
We love December 1st – it means we can bring out the Advent calendar. Among more traditional things, Advent calendars are a great way to count down the number of sleeps to Christmas. When we were little, the pinnacle of our aspirations was to get a “fancy” Advent calendar with chocolate behind the doors. Now we’ve got young ones of our own, we shudder at the taste of the overly-sweet, cheap, waxy chocolates that populate most Advent calendars, and at the thought of feeding them to our kids.
So when one of our intrepid mamas alerted us to the existence of Rogers’ Chocolates Advent calendars we had to find out more. We’re already fans of Rogers’, a true Victoria institution, but now we’re even bigger fans. They’ve got three calendars this year: the Heritage Store, a picture of the original Rogers’ Chocolate store front filled with dark chocolate; Twelve Days of Christmas, artwork by Vancouver artist Barb Wood, with milk chocolate behind every picture; and He’s Coming To Town, artwork by Ted Harrison, also offering daily milk chocolate treats. And this is good chocolate too, perfect for your discerning palette, or a toddler you’re hoping will develop one.
And since chocolate isn’t recommended for at least the first year of your child’s life, and dark chocolate has more caffeine than milk chocolate, we’re eyeing the Heritage Store for ourselves, while we think that the other two calendars would be a great treat for older toddlers.
Available online or at the following Rogers’ Chocolate locations: www.rogerschocolates.com
Today we’re starting our Holiday Shopping Guide, bringing you gift ideas from our sponsors once a week for the next four weeks. Advertisers like these allow us to keep on yoyo-ing, so we encourage you to check them out. Look out for another email from us in your inbox this afternoon.
4 Responses to “24 days of chocolate”
Leave a Comment
Let us know what you think or share your great finds with us so we can share them with other Vancouver mothers!
Oh … My … Gosh. *drool* I had NO idea. I need one, desperately.
For those of you who want to forego chocolate entirely, I recommend the Playmobil advent calendars. They are sold at various outlets (including the new Granville Island Toy company at Main & 17th that you profiled last week). In my mind, they are reasonably priced ($21.99) and you can choose from a generic Christmas theme (complete w/ Santa & working organ churning out holiday tunes!) or a castle/knights theme. The kids get to take out a few items every day and construct a scene. No chocolate, but maybe that could be saved for the parents…
Here’s a no candy advent calendar idea that I got from here:
http://www.kidscraftweekly.com/advent_issue.html
It’s nice to have a no candy option that encourages family togetherness. I made the version with the origami cups and put in activities like visiting Santa at Granville Island, making a fort and telling stories in it, having breakfast for dinner etc. . . I think I am looking forward to opening each one as much as my son!
Oh don’t get me wrong, the chocolate one is for ME not the kids LOL. We have one that I made where they get a clue and find a small pize (themed pencils, etc) each day. I also made one for a friend where I got some of those teeny tiny mittens from the dollar store ($1 a pair). Then I decorated them with sparkle glue (including numbering them), and attached them to a string with little clothes pegs. It looks really cute on the wall, and you can put things in the mittins.