The Best Advent Calendars for 2026: Beauty, Food, Wine, Gifts & More
There was a time when an advent calendar meant opening a tiny cardboard door and finding a piece of chocolate behind it. We still have a soft spot for those, but advent calendars have become considerably more interesting.
For 2026, there are calendars filled with skincare, fragrance, wine, candy, candles, tea and plenty of things that feel much more like a proper gift than a countdown to Christmas.
We’ve gone through this year’s releases and pulled together the best advent calendars for 2026 that caught our attention, whether you’re buying one for yourself, gifting one to someone else or looking for something the whole family can enjoy.
We’ll keep adding to this guide as more 2026 advent calendars are released, so it’s worth checking back as we get closer to the holidays.
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Beauty & Grooming Advent Calendars
Beauty advent calendars tend to be some of the first to sell out every year, particularly the ones that mix recognizable brands with products you’ll actually use. We tend to gravitate toward calendars that offer enough variety to make opening each day interesting without filling the bathroom cabinet with things that will still be sitting there next Christmas.
Anthropologie: The 24 Days of Beauty Advent Calendar
Anthropologie always does Christmas particularly well, and its beauty advent calendar feels very much in keeping with that. It brings together a mix of beauty and self-care products rather than focusing on just one brand or category, which makes opening each day a little more interesting. We also like this one as a gift because the presentation is part of the appeal. It feels festive before you’ve even opened the first door and works especially well for someone who enjoys discovering new beauty products rather than sticking to the same routine.
Best for: The beauty lover who likes trying a little bit of everything.
Sephora: 25 Days of Beauty Must Haves Advent Calendar
If you’re the person who can disappear into Sephora for an hour, this is probably one of the easier choices on the list. What we like about Sephora advent calendars is the variety, with different beauty categories and brands rather than 25 versions of essentially the same product. It also gives you a chance to try things you might not necessarily pick up on your own, which is really part of the fun of an advent calendar in the first place.
Best for: Someone who loves discovering new beauty products and brands.
Beekman 1802: The Kindness Cafe Advent Calendar
Beekman 1802’s 2026 advent calendar is one of the more playful beauty options we’ve seen this year, designed like a little holiday cafe with 24 drawers to open. Inside is a mix of goat milk skincare, body care and lip care, including 12 full-size products, new launches and some of the brand’s best-known formulas, plus a collectible Barista Goatie tucked into the experience. We also like that the cafe-style box is reusable, so it doesn’t have to disappear once December is over.
Best for: Beekman 1802 fans and anyone who wants a skincare-focused advent calendar with plenty of full-size products.
Elemis: The Ultimate Beauty Advent Calendar
Elemis is the one we’d look at for someone who is much more interested in skincare than makeup. It feels grown-up, useful and indulgent without being filled with novelty products that will never get used. There’s also something about skincare in December that makes particularly good sense. Between colder weather, travel, parties and everything else happening during the holidays, most of us could probably use a little extra help by the time Christmas morning rolls around.
Best for: Skincare lovers and anyone who already swears by Elemis.
L’Occitane: Classic Advent Calendar
L’Occitane is one of those brands that just works at Christmas. Hand creams, shower products and body care are all things people genuinely use, which makes this feel like a safer gift than a calendar full of very specific makeup shades or experimental skincare. We also like that there’s something nostalgic about a L’Occitane advent calendar. It still feels like a traditional Christmas countdown, just with considerably better things waiting behind the doors.
Best for: A classic beauty gift that’s difficult to get wrong.
Molton Brown: Decadent Delights Advent Calendar
Molton Brown is for the person whose bathroom already resembles a nice hotel bathroom, or who would very much like it to. The calendar brings together bath, body and fragrance products, which makes it feel indulgent while still being genuinely useful. We’ve always preferred gifts people can actually enjoy rather than save indefinitely for a special occasion, and this fits that category nicely. It would also make a particularly good gift for someone who already knows and loves Molton Brown fragrances.
Best for: Anyone who appreciates fragrance, bath products and a little bathroom luxury.
Kiehl’s: 24 Days of Joy 2026 Advent Calendar
Kiehl’s is a particularly good one if you want an advent calendar that feels useful rather than gimmicky. The 2026 version includes 24 skin, hair and body care favorites, with a mix of 3 full-size products, 3 travel sizes and 18 minis, so there’s a lot here you can actually work into your routine. It includes some of the brand’s best-known formulas, from Ultra Facial and Calendula products to vitamin C, retinol and Midnight Recovery Concentrate.
Best for: Kiehl’s fans and anyone who wants a skincare-heavy advent calendar with products they’ll genuinely use.
Liberty: Men’s Advent Calendar 2026
This was an immediate inclusion for us because genuinely good men’s advent calendars are still far less common than beauty calendars aimed primarily at women. Liberty’s version brings together grooming, skincare and fragrance products, so it feels much more curated than the stereotypical men’s gift set. For husbands, boyfriends, dads, brothers or simply yourself, this is one of the more interesting men’s options we’ve seen for 2026. And frankly, men deserve something better than another novelty sock calendar.
Best for: Men who are into grooming, skincare and fragrance.
Candy & Chocolate Advent Calendars
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with sticking with something sweet. In fact, some of the food advent calendars have become so good that they now feel just as giftable as the beauty versions. These range from nostalgic candy to considerably more sophisticated chocolate, so there’s something here whether you want fun, fancy or somewhere in between.
Sugarfina: Santa’s Parisian Christmas Candy Advent Calendar
Sugarfina has a way of making candy feel considerably fancier than candy probably has any right to feel, and we mean that as a compliment. The Parisian Christmas design is a big part of the appeal here because it’s decorative enough to leave out throughout December, while the candy inside keeps the whole thing playful. This is the sort of advent calendar we’d give to someone who loves a sweet treat but probably doesn’t need another beauty product sitting on the bathroom counter.
Best for: Anyone who would choose candy over skincare every time.
Williams Sonoma: Classic Candy Advent Calendar
Sometimes the traditional option is exactly the right one, and this Williams Sonoma calendar has that nostalgic Christmas feel without looking like it belongs exclusively in a child’s bedroom. It’s the sort of thing we can imagine sitting in the kitchen throughout December with everyone trying to remember whose turn it is to open the next door. It also works particularly well as a family advent calendar if you’d rather have one shared countdown than several separate ones.
Best for: Families and anyone who loves a more traditional Christmas.
Williams Sonoma: Chuck’s Luxury Advent Calendar
If you want something a little more special than the standard candy calendar, Chuck’s Luxury Advent Calendar from Williams Sonoma feels much more like a proper food gift. The individual treats make the countdown part of the experience, while the presentation makes it easy to give without having to do much else. We could see this being a good early December gift for hosts, parents or that person on your list who already seems to own absolutely everything.
Best for: Food lovers and notoriously difficult people to shop for.
Vosges Haut-Chocolat: Haut-Chocolat Advent Calendar
This is chocolate for the person who takes chocolate seriously. Vosges tends to do things a little differently, and its advent calendar feels more like a tasting experience than the chocolate calendars most of us grew up with. The packaging is beautiful too, which matters when something is going to be sitting out in your home for most of December. It’s definitely more of a splurge, but it also feels like something you could enjoy slowly rather than simply racing through for the chocolate.
Best for: Serious chocolate lovers who want something a little more sophisticated.
Wine Advent Calendars
An advent calendar that involves wine may be one of the more civilized ways to make your way through December. We particularly like these for couples because they turn opening the calendar into something you can do together rather than just another individual treat.
WSJ Wine: Wine Advent Calendar
If you’d rather find wine behind the advent doors than chocolate, the WSJ Wine calendar is an easy one to understand. Part of the appeal is trying bottles and styles you might not normally pick yourself, which makes it feel a little like doing a wine tasting at home throughout December. You may discover a new favorite, or at the very least have something different to open with dinner as Christmas gets closer.
Best for: Wine lovers and couples who like trying something new together.
In Good Taste: Wine Advent Calendar
The mini-bottle format is what makes the In Good Taste calendar particularly appealing because you can have a proper tasting without opening a full bottle every night. We’d probably split each one, pour two glasses and compare notes, which may or may not result in agreement. It’s also a good option if you enjoy wine but don’t necessarily want an entire bottle open every evening during December.
Best for: Couples and anyone who enjoys wine tasting at home.
Wine products are intended for adults of legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.
Tea, Candles & Home Advent Calendars
Not every advent calendar needs to involve beauty products or something edible. Some of our favorite options are the ones that simply give you an excuse to slow down a little during what is usually one of the busiest months of the year.
Tea Forté: Winter Chalet Advent Calendar
Not everything in December needs to involve alcohol or sugar, and the Tea Forté calendar feels like the quieter alternative on this list. It’s essentially an excuse for tea, a blanket and an evening where nobody expects you to leave the house, which sounds pretty good to us by December. The chalet packaging also makes it feel appropriately festive without being over the top, and we could easily see this working as a host gift or December thank-you.
Best for: Tea drinkers, hosts and anyone who takes their evening tea seriously.
Voluspa: 12 Day Holiday Village Advent Calendar
We love a candle during the holidays, so a box containing several of them was always going to get our attention. The Holiday Village packaging makes this especially giftable, but what we really like is being able to try several different scents without buying full-size candles of every one. You can move them around the house, save favorites for Christmas week and figure out which fragrances you actually want to buy again later.
Best for: Candle lovers and anyone who changes their home fragrance with the season.
Advent Calendars for Kids & Families
Kids still get some of the most fun advent calendars, particularly now that the options go far beyond a square of chocolate each morning. We tend to like the ones where whatever they open can actually be played with or kept once Christmas is over.
LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 2026
With two boys in our house, LEGO was inevitably going to make this list. The Star Wars calendar gives kids a small build or character each day, which makes the countdown to Christmas feel a little more substantial than eating one piece of chocolate before breakfast. We also like that everything is still useful after December 24 because the pieces simply become part of the LEGO collection. Parents may view that as a major advantage right up until they step on one barefoot in the dark.
Best for: LEGO and Star Wars fans who want something to build each day.
So, Which Advent Calendar Would We Choose?
It really depends on who we’re buying for. Elemis and Liberty’s Men’s Advent Calendar are two of the beauty and grooming options that stand out most to us, while Vosges is the one we’d pick for someone who genuinely loves good chocolate. In Good Taste is especially fun for couples, and both Tea Forté and Voluspa feel like easy gifts when you don’t necessarily know someone’s exact beauty or food preferences.
For kids, the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar is the sort of thing we know would actually get opened every morning, and probably before anyone has been given permission to open it.
The one thing we wouldn’t do is wait until December to buy one. Some of the more popular 2026 advent calendars, particularly beauty, wine and luxury food calendars, can disappear well before the holiday season is properly underway. If there’s one you know you want, advent calendars are one of those Christmas purchases where shopping early really does make sense.
We’ll keep adding to this guide as we find more of the best advent calendars for 2026, so check back for new additions throughout the season.
