Are Yankee Candle’s advent calendars worth a glowing review?

This calendar comes in a lovely Christmas-themed box that opens like a book, making for easier storage throughout December.

Some doors are a little hard to open but, inside, there are 24 candles: 12 tealights, and 12 mini votives that come in small glass jars. It’s worth stating there are 12 scents on offer in total, so, over the entire month, you’ll receive each fragrance twice, once in each format. Behind the first door, you’ll receive a pretty, silver-plated glass tealight holder, which you can use with other tealights beyond Christmas. There’s also a gorgeously scented silver sage and pine tealight to get December started – ideal to give your home a fresh, forest fragrance, even if you’re sticking with a fake tree this year.

Other particularly Christmassy candle scents included are cinnamon stick, spiced banana bread and vanilla cupcake, though, there are also several that are less typically festive, including wild orchid, red raspberry and black cherry. With so many candles to get through during December, we liked the inclusion of non-festive scents, as we would be able to save these and use them after the Christmas period has come to an end. There are no plastic inserts used, either, so the whole calendar can be recycled.

We think this advent calendar is fantastic value for money. It comes in a fairly slim octagonal-shaped box, so it shouldn’t get in the way throughout December. The festive picture and subtle branding on the front also mean this calendar should sit perfectly alongside your usual Christmas decorations. Plus, the cardboard has been sourced from responsibly managed forests, and the calendar has no plastic inserts, so can be entirely recycled.

There’s a tealight behind every door and the first day also includes a clear glass holder. The tealights come in eight fragrances, so you can expect to get each one three times throughout December. All smell fantastic but it would have been nice to have had a little more variety.

Still, we loved the more Christmassy scents, including (our favourite) Christmas cookie and cinnamon stick. All had a very strong, evocative smell that really put us in a festive mood and even lingered the following morning after using the night before. Each tealight burns evenly and cleanly, without giving off black smoke.

Like the Yankee Candle advent book, there are some less Christmassy scents included here, such as bayside cedar, but they still smell great, and lighting one each day will feel like a treat while you count down to Christmas.