Earlier than expected and exceeding my expectations, my 2015 David’s Tea AdvenTea calendar arrived shortly after I ordered it earlier than the general public.

It’s beautiful.

In the past years, the advent calendar has been bulky, more than twice the thickness of this year’s with the teas spanning both “pages” when you open it up like a book. Each day I hunted for that day’s tea as they were randomly dispersed across the two sides and opened the “door” which was a perforated circle.

This year, they have made the calendar more compact and opted to put the teas into small drawers. They are still not in order, but the number for the days is more visible and this year, they have rolled out special gold tins. Honestly, I was starting to get blasé about getting another tea advent calendar because it is so heavily skewed towards winter collection teas while it is spring and summer (fruity) collections that capture my fancy more most years. But this year’s advent calendar improvements drew me back in all over again.

One of the places I really wanted to hit up in Toronto during my recent trip was the Squish Candy Store that opened recently in The Bay on Queen Street. “Grown-up” gourmet gummy bears were their thing and I worried that I would find myself like a deer caught in headlights, paralyzed by the abundance of choice what I should get.

When I saw the advent calendar, it was simple. When I learned about Squish, I immediately thought about my candy loving friend Oliver. When I saw the advent calendar, it reminded me about his recent inquiry to me about the Starbucks advent calendar which features 24 days of chocolate (yawn, boring) and how he and his wife just got his parents the David’s Tea advent calendar. I was going to get him a gift of Squish anyhow so the advent calendar was the obvious choice.

Plus, Squish is premium gummy bears and an advent calendar would ensure they will enjoy it over over three weeks and not in one sitting! ;-)