Counting down the days until Christmas is a fun way to get into the holiday spirit, and using an advent calendar brings a special surprise each day. While traditional advent calendars often have religious symbolism, there are fun advent calendars for everyone.
Funko Pop is a company that manufactures a wide range of pop culture items, including their famous bobbleheads. Every year around the holidays, they sell a variety of advent calendars inspired by various TV shows, movies, games and comics. You'll see some of your favorite fictional worlds, like "Harry Potter," "The Office" and "Dragon Ball Z."
Advent calendars began as a way to mark the 4 week period of advent leading up to Christmas. The tradition started in Germany, where Protestants would mark off each day of advent with chalk or by lighting a candle. Today, you can find advent calendars of all shapes and sizes. There are simple, paper calendars and elaborate wooden houses with tiny doors. Unlike the traditional ones, today most advent calendars begin their count on December 1 and go through Christmas Day.
Some advent calendars can be used year after year. You can fill these with your choice of
surprises, like candy and small gifts. There are also single use calendars that come prefilled. If you are buying an advent calendar for yourself, this type is perfect because you won't know what is inside each compartment.
With so many fun calendars to choose from, it can be difficult to pick a favorite. Think about who you'll be enjoying your calendar with. Try to find a calendar inspired by a TV show, movie or game that everyone loves. This will ensure everyone is excited when it is time to open the compartment each day.
If you want to add some spice to your daily door openings, have the members of your household compete each day to see who gets to open the door and keep the gift inside. Using the TV show or movie your calendar is based on, host a trivia competition each day. Have everyone take turns competing and running the trivia game. You can look for trivia questions online. Have three to five questions ready for each person competing and a few tiebreakers just in case. You can either read questions out to everyone and hand out points to whoever answers first, or you can assign questions to participants individually. Whoever gets the most questions right wins and gets the gift of the day.
If you will be playing with children, try to make the questions an appropriate level of difficulty. You can have another adult help them come up with trivia questions so they get a turn running the game as well.
Funko Pop Advent calendars are single use and come filled with 24 themed surprises.
Funko Advent Calendar: Dragon Ball Z
This calendar makes a perfect gift for those diehard "Dragon Ball Z" fans. Enjoy 24 days of Pocket Pop Characters from the show. The Pocket Pop characters resemble the full-size bobbleheads. You'll discover Goku, Dende and others.
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Funko Advent Calendar: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Perfect for use at Christmas or Halloween, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" Funko Pop Calendar is 24 days of fun. You'll find your favorite characters from the film, like Oogie Boogie, Jack Skellington and Sally. You'll love the adorable Pocket Pop characters.
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Funko Advent Calendar: Harry Potter
Get surprised with your favorite characters and beasts from "Harry Potter." This advent calendar has Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dobby and others, including professors and some unique creatures. Each figure is a Pocket Pop character that range in size but don't exceed 2 inches.
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Funko Pop Advent Calendar: Pokemon
Great for you or your kids, this Pokemon Funko Pop advent calendar is a fun way for the whole family to countdown to Christmas. The calendar contains 24 cute Pokémon figures. There are regular Pokémon and silver editions.
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Funko Pop Advent Calendar: Five Nights at Freddy's
You'll love this Funko Pop "Five Nights at Freddy's" advent calendar. The calendar contains 24 of your favorite animatronics and characters with a fun Christmas twist. Each is decorated for Christmas with candy cane stripes, reindeer noses and other fun paint.
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Funko Pop Advent Calendar: The Office
Celebrate this holiday this year with your favorite office workers. This calendar features 24 Pocket Pop figurines of characters from the beloved TV show. Each day you'll be surprised with Dwight, Pam, Jim, Micheal and others.
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Morgan Freeman writes for BestReviews. BestReviews has helped millions of consumers simplify their purchasing decisions, saving them time and money.