JL Edwardian Advent Calendar

The 2023 advent calendar ended up being a delight (loved that all the original games were included along with many new ones!). Unfortunately the ‘slow reveal’ technique used this year made the outdoor scenes feel two dimensional and uninviting for the first half of the month. The house windows were all dark and there was no cute village to stroll through and re-decorate. The sitting room held all the action, and each day a new gift provided more fun and games. By the end it was a blast, but it was a shame to have to wait half the season to really enjoy the beauty of the outdoor scenes.

I have looked forward to this advent calendar for the past 5 years. Honestly, there were many key components I missed this year—the snowman, outside tree lights and other features (store displays, light poles) that changed when you touched them and the interactive nature of the scene in general. I loved the year we found the gnomes, and then they turned up on the game room bookshelf and sing Merry Christmas on the 25th. Perhaps if the animals we find each day had culminated in an outside parade?? Fingers crossed for next year?!?

This years felt like an old recycled version from 10 years ago. Been a happy customer for many years - not sure why they downgraded the interactions so much.

I’ve had a Jacquie Lawson Advent calendar since 2013; it has one of my favorite Christmas traditions but not this year. This year’s calendar has no interactive community so is very boring and the videos were substandard. The one video that promised a festive holiday ball only showed generic figures entering the house — no actual ball! Next year I will preview the calendar before purchasing it.

No idea what anybody is complaining about. The art is so lovely & i keep coming back to everything even days after Christmas.

My mother, sister and I have been enjoying the JL advent calendars for years. This year was a disappointment, I’m very sorry to say. I did love searching for animals each day, that was enjoyable. However, if you look at the main scene - where’s Christmas? Where are the lights, decorations - any signs of the season? It was bare, cold, and actually slightly depressing. In past years there were trees with lights, wreaths, decorations, children sledding, snowmen, fireworks, Santa at Christmas and so much more. This year, nothing. Lonely (although cute) animals out in the snow. Please, less videos, more entertainment and more outdoor holiday decor and excitement next year!

Not as fun as the last two years. I’ll probably still buy it, but I hope it improves.

I can’t delete the app for new year’s!

(As the review I originally posted seems to have vanished, I will just start from scratch). I see quite a few positives in this calendar, including some new additions (i.e.: the train set, a tapestry, new and attractive ornaments for the Christmas trees). I am also very happy that the pets are back! (They were missed!). I do enjoy the daily animal search as well! 🦔 Plus, the artwork is as enjoyable as ever, with nice little touches like the railroad in the distance, the partridge around which a pear tree appears and so on. However, there is one aspect of this app that I really do not enjoy and the impact of it is significant: the fact that instead of featuring an array of varied and engaging activities (which the 2022 Sussex calendar did incredibly well!), this calendar has reverted back to employing an excessive number of videos as the daily feature, as it did back in 2021, with the London calendar. 👎 It is not that the videos are not well done. They are - and having a few of them interspersed among other, varied daily activities would be fine - refreshing even. However, these videos constitute the great majority of the daily activities in this advent calendar, which just makes the overall experience of using it incredibly predictable and dull. Ultimately, it greatly detracts from any sense of anticipation or discovery when revealing the current day’s “surprise” (and how can it not, when we already know ahead of time what that activity is bound to be?). Now, I am not saying that there aren’t a lot of other activities included elsewhere in the calendar, but how they are used matters. Including a lot more of the interactive activities as the featured daily surprises, instead of treating them as stand-alone activities found in our Christmas home/drawing room, would really have gone a long way to break up the monotonous and routine sensation one gets when watching an endless parade of daily videos. And why such a fixation on videos anyway, JL? Realistically speaking, how many can a user absorb before boredom and disenchantment with the whole routine set in? Personally, I find that their overuse very much detracts from what once made this calendar so special: the sense of anticipation as to what the day’s featured *activity* would be, the fun of discovering it, and then…the joy of actually doing it! Finally, in view of the fact that your advent calendars are now much more expensive than they once were, it can hardly be considered inappropriate for a user to ex

Last year’s advent calendar was festive, had word puzzles and a challenging Find the Elf advent. This year, it’s dreary, lonely looking and is a constant reminder of the class system. I hope next year is better.