12 best vegan advent calendars for a perfect plant-based Christmas countdown

With funky patterns and zany characters on the front of this advent calendar, Happi has nailed the cool and contemporary aesthetic. The calendar itself is very well-made, with a fun and bright design on the interior featuring 24 little numbered doors – and we think kids (and adults) will appreciate the reminder on day 11 when there are “two weeks to go”.

Open up the little doors and you’ll find individually wrapped and snappably slim vegan chocolate squares. These will be one of three scrumptious flavours: either a smooth plain chocolate, a festive inclusion of an orange flavour and, our personal favourite, a salted caramel variety. Made with oat milk to create a creamy taste and texture, along with single-origin Colombian cocoa, the flavours strike a nice balance between a vegan milk chocolate and one with a little more intensity – a nice choice if you don’t love super-sweet chocolate.

A colourful and plastic-free calendar that has big appeal for adults and children, it’s also gluten-free.

When it comes to delivering the creaminess of “milk” chocolate sans the milk, vegan chocolate brand H!P does not disappoint. Housed in fun, colourful and – even better – plastic-free packaging, H!P’s vegan chocolate advent calendar this year comes filled with 24 slivers of individually wrapped chocolate made with sustainably sourced, single-origin Colombian cocoa. And the brand’s key to the smooth texture of its chocolate? Oat milk.

We liked that there was an element of surprise as to which of the four flavours we would find behind each door. Suitably Christmassy, the gingerbread flavour has a (very) subtle kick to it, while there’s also an orange flavour, salted caramel and a plain chocolate – all smooth, sweet and extremely more-ish.

If you love the sheer decadence and chocolatey-ness of a chocolate truffle, then this vegan calendar (certified by The Vegan Society) from Monty Bojangles may eclipse the rest. The London-based brand has clearly been honing its truffle-making skills, as these are delicious.

All intensely chocolatey, there’s a cocoberry blush flavour (coconut and raspberry), which has a slightly fruity tang to it; cocoa nib nights (vegan chocolate with cocoa nibs) truffles; and, our personal favourite, the caramel haze flavour (caramel and hazelnut). Dusted with a layer of vegan cocoa with a hint of bitterness, each of the three flavours melts in the mouth with a fudgy texture.

Featuring Monty Bojangles’s characteristically fantastical branding across the packaging – think flamingos and flowers sprouting from the horn of brass instruments – this is sure to bring some whimsy to your Christmas countdown.

With 25 vegan and cruelty-free bath bombs, bars and melts, this is the ultimate advent calendar if you’re a fan of Lush. As soon as we opened this up we were met with a lovely, sweet scent. With the brand well-known for thinking outside of the box when it comes to its products, the treasures inside are as inventive as you’d expect.

If you love a spoiler, inside you’ll find a reindeer bubble bar, a bath bomb that looks like a lump of coal and turned our bathwater into a glittering black soup, and a handful of exclusives, including a lemongrass-scented glow worm (this really does glow in the dark), a nice touch for keen Lush buffs.

The packaging is next level too. Designed to look like a mini Santa’s workshop – if you can call it that, as this advent calendar is enormous. What’s more, it’s made from recycled cardboard, while the ribbon is made using recycled drinks bottles, which makes us love it even more.

Independent B-corp certified brand Bird & Blend is a name worth knowing if you’re into tea in a big way. Its new advent calendar for 2023 is vegan-friendly and a real treat for the senses, as it brings ingredients such as red peppercorns, rose petals and even cocoa nibs into the mix to produce some creative flavour combinations. Spoiler alert: expect the likes of strawberry lemonade, hazelnut, and rhubarb and custard.

We appreciated pointers on the tea bags when it came to knowing how long to let them steep, and whether or not you can add a splash of milk (or plant-based milk in our case). Each blend included behind the calendar doors comes in a pair of tea bags, making this a nice option for sharing, too. We also love that Bird & Blend’s tea bags have always been plastic-free, and the calendar itself is plastic-free and recyclable. There’s also a caffeine-free version available.

Without a doubt, this is the most beautiful advent calendar we have ever seen. Shimmering with gold detailing and plastic-free, it looks like a thick-bound book you might dust off at the back of an old library. Once opened, it presents you with 12 small boxes slotted neatly into both sides, each adorned with finely detailed, hand-drawn depictions of the 12 days of Christmas, from a partridge in a pear tree to the 12 drummers for the final day.

Inside each of these boxes, there’s a large slab of deliciously rich dark chocolate, which is some of the best we’ve ever tried. The quality is clearly excellent and the flavours are intense and full of depth, with the taste notes of each displayed on their boxes, including fiery vanilla and chipotle, sea salt and toasty roasted nuts. These are pretty thick slabs too, so while they’re satisfying to break into yourself, it’s nice that they can be snapped into four and shared around.

Back for another year, the B-corp certified brand’s sell-out advent calendar is a nutty countdown consisting of 24 individually wrapped, full-size peanut butter and almond butter cups. These gluten- and palm-oil-free treats feature delicious nut butter encased in a layer of ethically sourced, single-origin Colombian dark chocolate. The treats aren’t especially sweet, but the dark chocolate isn’t particularly bitter either (we also found it to be the perfect thickness). It’s ideal for any fan of peanut butter, or anyone with a hankering for a daily sweet treat that feels a little more substantial than just chocolate, and we can’t recommend this nutty calendar enough.

With the likes of snowmen, Santa Claus and other suitable festive chocolate characters housed inside, this advent calendar from Hotel Chocolat proves our theory that chocolate really can taste better when it’s moulded into characters and sculptures. If you want your advent calendar to look pretty sitting on your kitchen table, the silvery and especially premium-looking design could be another appealing feature from Hotel Chocolat.

As for the chocolate inside – which is made with at least 70 per cent cacao from premium cacao beans – there’s a deep and buttery richness that dark chocolate fans dream of, while any intense bitterness is balanced out with a hint of sweetness. For those who prefer their dark chocolate on the milder side too, we can’t recommend the boutique chocolatier’s offering enough.

The clue is in the name of this vegan, family-run chocolate brand. Using ethically and sustainably sourced Rainforest Alliance cocoa beans, Moo Free produces chocolate that is not only plant-based but made without wheat, gluten or soya.

An advent calendar for the white chocolate lovers, this is a sweet white chocolate countdown with 24 fairly small chocolate slabs nestled into a recycled plastic tray, each with a Christmas (and some not so Christmas-themed) image embossed on the top – think a penguin but also a rocket ship. Our one small gripe is that the characters on the chocolate could have been slightly clearer, as it was hard to make out what some of them were.

With a malty taste that isn’t too sickly sweet, Moo Free’s white chocolate flavour and texture are pretty decent – there are no cocoa solids used to make white chocolate (hence the colour). However, it does contain cocoa butter, which is why we can still fairly call it chocolate.

Showcased in this Vegan Society-approved advent calendar, Joe & Seph’s has clearly mastered the art of seriously scrumptious popcorn. It’s the crispness and crunchiness that really sets it apart from any store or cinema-bought popcorn that we’ve tried. Plus, there’s a variety of seven sweet and sometimes surprising popcorn flavours. Our personal favourite was the caramel, sea salt and maple syrup variety, which has a malty taste. However, this came among other strong contenders, including caramel dark chocolate and orange, caramel and strawberry, toffee apple and cinnamon, and coconut and cacao.

All Joe & Seph’s popcorn is handmade in London without any artificial colours, flavours or preservatives, while this calendar is gluten-free as well as vegan-friendly.

Beauty advent calendars can be an exciting and cost-effective way to try new brands while stocking up on skincare and more for the year ahead. Holland & Barrett’s 25 days of beauty advent calendar is no exception. With more than £179 worth of vegan skincare, haircare and wellness products, the bundle is brilliant value for money, costing just shy of £50.

Adorned in a fairly simple green design, it features two large layers that reminded us of a small chest of drawers. It’s heavy on skincare, including the ultra hydrating skin food body lotion from Weleda, and a face scrub made with upcycled coffee grounds from Up Circle. Another standout for us was the travel-sized natural deodorant from Wild, which proved to work very well. And we were pleased to find 16 full-sized products inside.

We do think it’s worth noting that not all of the products in this advent calendar are cruelty-free.

If you’re looking for a “free from” chocolate advent calendar, we really recommend Nomo’s – not just because it’s made in a dairy-, eggs-, nuts- and gluten-free facility, but because it tastes superb. There are 24 doors concealing smooth, mini, plant-based chocolate drops, which are extremely moreish. Made with Rainforest Alliance certified cocoa, while being palm oil-free, the chocolate is fairly sweet, resembling milk chocolate in look and taste. You won’t find any festive flavours inside this calendar, and you will know exactly what you’re getting, given each day brings the same – albeit very delicious – chocolate drop. Although, we certainly aren’t complaining.