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For both children and parents, the run up to Christmas Day is often as exciting as the 25 December itself.
The anticipation of all the presents to come, the fabulous dinner and being surrounded by family and friends is wonderful and having an advent calendar to count down the days from the 1 December to 24 December only helps to make it all the more magical.
While there are always hundreds of pretty paper or chocolate filled advent calendars in the shops, it can be a lovely idea to buy a wooden advent calendar that can be filled with little toys or sweets and be used for years to come, making it a memorable part of your family Christmas. As your children get older, the gifts can change to suit their age with toys for toddlers and young children and things like beauty products, jewellery and collectable characters or ornaments as girls and boys grow up.
A refillable advent calendar for kids can be a much more sustainable choice and it also allows you to really personalise your child's advent experience, with age appropriate gifts and toys behind each door that you know they will love. And once you've bought one of these advent calendars they can be used as part of your Christmas décor for years to come so will be doubly useful. These wooden advent calendars come in a beautiful designs, including a tree advent calendar or a wooden advent calendar gingerbread house. We've rounded up the 10 best advent calendars that you can easily buy online and that come in a variety of designs and budgets so you can fill 24 drawers with heartfelt gifts for your little angels this festive period.
Each of these calendars starts on the first day of advent: 1 December, so if you're not one of those families who puts their tree up on the first day of Christmas month, make sure you keep your wooden advent calendar somewhere that's easy to find and not at the bottom of your Christmas decorations box in the loft!
If you're still looking for Christmas ideas, you might want to take a look at some of our other Best Buys articles, including the best outdoor Christmas decorations and the best Christmas Eve boxes for kids.
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Kidadl's Top Pick
While all the beautiful wooden advent calendars on our list come highly recommended, if you're short on time or can't decide between them all, here's our top pick based on price, design and the fact that it can be personalised.
1. My 1st Years Personalised Advent Calendar House
This little red house is the perfect children's advent calendar because it is so charming and Christmassy and it can even be personalised with their own name, which will delight them. It's a lovely sturdy advent calendar and each drawer has room for a small toy or sweetie that your kids will love. It's a fabulous price too, especially when you'll use it year after year. We love that the nearer to Christmas Day you get, the more space there is for gifts in the cute snow covered roof. With 24 drawers to fill, you'll want to start searching for the perfect sized presents or sweeties in October or November, ready to fill the drawers with magical gifts.
Main Features
- Price: £32.40
- Age: 3+
- Can be personalised
Best For Filling With Small Gifts For Older Children
2. Traditional Wooden Christmas Advent Calendar
This Amazon advent calendar has a really modern and fun design that kids will love to use to search out the next date in December. Each of the 24 boxes looks like a lovely wrapped present and has space for a sweet or a very small toy, so is ideal for older kids as toddlers may have larger toys in their advent calendar. It's a modern take on a Christmas tree so best for families who like contemporary designs over the more traditional festive look.
Main Features
- Price: £25.95
- Age: 3+, but we think this suits tweens and teens best
Best For Under 5s
3. Personalised Vintage Wooden LED Bus Advent Calendar
This eye catching calendar will really go down a treat with younger kids thanks to its smart bus design and LED lights that create the Christmas magic. It can be personalised with your child's name too, so will become a treasured keepsake. The drawers can be rearranged in any way you like, so you can jumble them up or keep them in order once you've filled them with treats.
Main Features
- Price: £42
- Can be personalised
Best For A Stylish Option
4. Lights4Fun Winter Cabin Wooden Advent Calendar
If you like your Christmas decor to match the Scandi chic interiors of your home then this is the choice for you. This wooden advent calendar looks like it's straight from a European Christmas market with its delightful wooden reindeer and tree scene lit up with a warm glow from behind. A lovely hygge way to bring December morning excitement into your home.
Main Features
- Price: £39.99
- Requires 2 x AA batteries (not included)
Best For Families On A Budget
5. TK Maxx Box Advent Calendar
This kids' advent calendar is excellent value for such a sweet festive design. Consisting of 23 five inch square boxes all stakced together in a sleek and stylish design, it will delight kids with the pretty Christmas patterns on each box (particularly older children who are not as interested in Christmas characters anymore but still expect an advent calendar from their parents!). The boxes on this one are quite small, so you'll probably want to fill it with sweeties or some other small edible treat as it'll be tricky to find toys small enough to fit.
Main Features
- Price: £9.99
- Small boxes to fill
Best For A Sustainable Christmas
6. Ginger Ray Reuseable Wooden Advent Calendar House
This traditional advent calendar is a really stylish option and is an alternative advent calendar to the ones with classic drawers that you fill with your own presents. It's fun to fill as it comes with 24 white discs that you insert each day like a blind or curtains and the house fills up from the bottom to the top as Christmas approaches. If you don't like the idea of buying 24 presents or your kids eating a sweet every morning then this is a fabulous choice, as it's still an exciting and fun way to countdown to the most anticipated day of the year.
Main Features
- Price: £19.99
- No presents needed, comes with white discs
Best For Remembering The Nativity Story
7. Lakeland Bethlehem Advent Stable
This wooden advent calendar might be one of the priciest on the list, but when you consider that it doubles up as a Nativity scene too and is a really gorgeous design that will last for many years to come, then it really is worth the spend. Instead of filling it with presents, this religious calendar has a figure from the Nativity scene behind each door so children can build the full scene throughout December and reveal the finished Christmas story on the 24th. The scene also spins 360 degrees making it really easy to access each door. If you want to remind your children the meaning behind all the presents and festivities, this is a wonderful choice.
Main Features
- Price: £69.99
- Turns into a Nativity scene
Best For A Unique Advent Calendar
8. Pushka Gifts Christmas Advent Calendar Tree With Hanging Sacks
This fillable advent calendar is a really different take on the classic wooden calendar. Instead of drawers it comes with cute little sacks that are pegged onto a line that you can fill with presents or sweets. The sacks come in a whole host of pretty colours, including glittery red and festive gold and copper, and it can also be personalised with your child's name or your family name at the top. It's a fairly expensive option, but is made from solid oak and is a lovely quality that will last for many years.
Main Features
- Price: £85
- Can be personalised
- Design with little sacks rather than drawers
Best For Adding To Your Christmas Decor
9. Wayfair Wooden Tree Advent Calendar
You won't want to put this lovely Christmas tree advent calendar away after the final drawer has been opened on the 24th, as it's a charming and festive addition to your seasonal decor. This wooden advent calendar is great value and has a lovely 360 degree Christmas tree design and little drawers with a different Christmas picture on each one, which will delight little kids as they see what festive character they get each day. It will fit much smaller presents though, so is probably best for older children who can eat sweets or play with small toys.
Main Features
- Price: £34.99
- 360 degree design
Best For A Traditional Design
10. Heaven Sends Wooden Gingerbread House Advent Calendar
If you're looking to fill your own advent calendar, you can't go wrong with this classic gingerbread design. It almost looks good enough to eat with its 24 numbered drawers that cover the sides of this 3D house. With cute gingerbread characters on the side, kids will fall in love with the traditional charm of this gingerbread house advent calendar.
Main Features
- Price: £50
- 33 cm x 26 cm x 16.5 cm
Kidadl Best Buys selects the top parent-recommended products across the web for families of all ages. If you liked our article on the best advent calendars and want more ideas to help make Christmas extra special, check out our list of the best Christmas presents for boys and the best Christmas presents for girls.
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At Kidadl we pride ourselves on offering families original ideas to make the most of time spent together at home or out and about, wherever you are in the world. We strive to recommend the very best things that are suggested by our community and are things we would do ourselves - our aim is to be the trusted friend to parents.
We try our very best, but cannot guarantee perfection. We will always aim to give you accurate information at the date of publication - however, information does change, so it’s important you do your own research, double-check and make the decision that is right for your family.
Kidadl provides inspiration to entertain and educate your children. We recognise that not all activities and ideas are appropriate and suitable for all children and families or in all circumstances. Our recommended activities are based on age but these are a guide. We recommend that these ideas are used as inspiration, that ideas are undertaken with appropriate adult supervision, and that each adult uses their own discretion and knowledge of their children to consider the safety and suitability.
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