Some of the Best Countdowns Happen in Every Other Season
If you ask most people what an Advent calendar is for, you'll probably get the same answer.
"Counting down to Christmas."
They're not wrong. Christmas is where the tradition began, and it's still our favourite time of year to pull out an Advent calendar. But somewhere along the way, we found ourselves asking a different question.
Why should something that creates a little excitement every single day only happen once a year? It turns out... it doesn't have to.
It All Started With One Question
Last year, one of our corporate Advent calendar clients reached out with an idea. They had purchased calendars for their team for the holidays, and they loved them so much.
They live in a beach city that still has that small-town feel, and naturally they asked: "Could we do this... but for summer?"
We looked at each other for about half a second before saying, "Honestly... why not?" We've already made calendars for Valentine's Day and Halloween; summer seemed the next logical step!
The more we talked about it, the more it made sense. The countdown itself wasn't really about Christmas. It was about building anticipation. It was about giving people something fun to look forward to every day and creating a shared experience along the way. Christmas just happened to be one of the reasons to do it.
Once we started thinking about it that way, we couldn't stop coming up with ideas.
It Deserved a Trip to the Beach
When the summer calendar came together, we all had the same thought.
This thing deserves to be at the beach, not just sitting on a desk. At the lake, surrounded by towels, sunglasses, sunscreen, and bare feet in the sand.
The Alberta weather at the time made it tricky for us to get there, so we haven't made it there just yet, but trust us... it's happening.
Because the moment we saw that calendar, we realized it didn't feel like a Christmas product that had been moved into summer. It simply felt like a countdown to something exciting. And if it worked so naturally for summer, why were we limiting it to Christmas in the first place?
Turns Out, We Count Down to Lots of Things
Once we stopped thinking about Advent calendars as something that's only meant for December, the possibilities started appearing everywhere.
Life is full of countdowns.
Some are big milestones, while others are simply moments we've been looking forward to for months. The anticipation is part of what makes those occasions special, so why not make the countdown part of the celebration too?
Some of our favourite ideas include:
- A birthday countdown (we tried this during COVID)
- A wedding countdown
- A family vacation
- Employee onboarding
- A company anniversary
- A product launch
- The last days before summer break
The format stays the same; the story, design, and feeling change completely.
More Than a Calendar
One of the things we love most about candy is that it doesn't belong to a single holiday; it's what you make of it.
It can be bright and tropical, elegant, colourful, or simply full of classics and surprises along the way. The candy changes and the artwork is developed for your countdown.
What stays the same is that little moment of excitement waiting for you each day. And honestly, we think that's something worth celebrating more than once a year.
Maybe the Best Ideas Start With "What If?"
Christmas will always be our favourite season for Advent calendars. There's something magical about opening that first cube on December 1, and we don't think that'll ever change. But we also love watching traditions evolve.
Some of our favourite products started because we started asking simple, what-if questions.
"What if we did this differently?" That's exactly how our summer countdown came to life. So now we're curious...
What would you count down to?
If you come up with something we haven't thought of yet, we'd genuinely love to hear it. Some of our favourite ideas have started exactly that way.
Continue Exploring
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