When festive means sweaty Bruce Willis

Advent calendars have all sorts of lovely things tucked away behind those little doors now. There are calendars with nail polish and calendars with gin (now there's a disaster waiting to happen).

Nothing says Christmas like a Die Hard advent calendar

Everyone knows that the calendar must be opened first thing, and everyone knows what whatever lies behind that little door must be consumed immediately.

Why, when I worked for a large telecommunication company it was the only time the entire team turned up early. Early worm got the chocolate angel, naturally.

Just think how well that team meeting would have gone with a miniature of gin safely stowed amidships.

For those who prefer the traditional image-based approach, you can even source a ‘Die Hard’ advent calendar, because nothing says festive like Bruce Willis sweating in a vest top.

Chocs are like sandy Nutella

Remember those strange ‘chocolate-flavoured’ advent calendars? The treats had a sort of gritty texture, like Nutella mixed with sand.

I harboured a suspicion that this strange confection was left over from the Second World War, possibly dropped by the well-meaning US Air Force, or perhaps given out by the Red Army to convince the world that the Soviets could make chocolate as well as the running dogs of capitalism. Spoiler alert: no, they couldn’t.