Why advent calendars capture the happiness of anticipation

December means Advent calendars. And they mean much more than a daily chocolate. They distil one of the most powerful and often overlooked components of happiness – anticipation. As I discuss in Happiness by Design, your anticipations are all part of your current feelings. Looking forward to something can make us very happy, and sometimes even happier than the experience itself. Looking forward to Christmas can make you just as happy as the day itself – and sometimes much happier, especially when the event involves distant relatives and dry turkey. Most events or occasions are relatively short-lived compared to the time leading up to them. So, we should look to make the most of that time by not only paying attention to the here and now but by also casting our eye forward to what is yet to happen.

An Advent calendar makes the anticipation of Christmas Day tangible. Rather than offering the entire reward at once, it parcels out twenty-plus tiny moments. The chocolates or toys under each day are trivial in themselves. Yet the emotional return can be much higher as each one represents a day closer to the looked forward to event of Christmas. The calendar transforms waiting from a period of impatience into an experience of joy.

This matters because modern life has become increasingly oriented toward instant gratification. Media, technology, and consumption patterns nudge us toward instant happiness hits. We binge-watch shows rather than waiting weekly; we expect next-day delivery instead of looking forward to receiving something; we refresh feeds to see updates instantly. By reducing the time between desire and reward, we shrink the space where anticipation once lived. And with it, we lose out on an important source of happiness.

Anticipation activates our mind’s reward circuitry, often more intensely than the eventual event. Holidays, celebrations, and even simple pleasures like a planned meal or outing can produce weeks of joy before they occur. Advent calendars offer a structured way to practice savouring the future. They teach us patience in a way that feels playful rather than moralistic. And they remind us that the buildup to Christmas – the lights, the rituals, the shared expectations – is not merely prelude but part of the holiday’s emotional richness.

Even adults who no longer believe in Santa benefit from these daily sparks of anticipation. There’s a reason adult-oriented Advent calendars have exploded in popularity in recent years: calendars filled with tea, beauty products, craft beer, puzzles, or poems. These are not indulgences so much as tools for pacing pleasure. I appreciate that there are environmental issues with the waste created by the packaging, so let’s stick to simply, sustainable calendars to provide us with the happiness hit of anticipation. The season of Advent is fundamentally about looking forward. Historically, it has been a period of preparation and reflection, not simply consumption. While many of us engage with it in a secular way today, the underlying psychological pattern remains relevant.

Advent calendars provide a template we can generalise beyond the holidays. You don’t need a cardboard calendar to reap the benefits of anticipation. You can schedule things you look forward to across the year: a monthly breakfast with a friend, a quarterly weekend away, or a weekly tradition like movie night. You can create your own micro-moments, too: a short walk at a favourite time of day, a chapter of a novel saved for lunch breaks, a small treat set aside for Friday afternoons. These rituals work not because of their content but because they give us something to expect with pleasure.

So as we move through December, consider the humble Advent calendar not as a childhood relic but as a clever happiness intervention. It invites us to savour the approach of something joyful. In a year when time often feels rushed and attention stretched thin, that simple act of daily anticipation is not trivial at all. It is a gentle reminder that happiness is not only found in the experiences we enjoy, but also in the looking forward to those experiences. And we get that happiness hit from looking forward even if the event is a bit of letdown. Wishing you a very merry Christmas — and even merrier anticipations with every door you open.