Gourmet du Village Hot Chocolate Advent Calendar

My kiddos really liked this calendar. Hot chocolates are delicious! But, they miss using the "window" to attain 1 hot chocolate surprise package at a time.

I'm not going to give this a 1 star because I think the product has to be essentially broken to warrant that. You still get 12 hot chocolates, individually packaged and ready to mix and drink - so there's that.

However, the experience is quite poor. As mentioned by the other person, it's not a "real" advent calendar in the sense that you open a door, and then you have to go find the mix that was shoved in a pile at the bottom of the box. And you don't get a unique flavour for every day either.

This is the first time I've seen a hot chocolate advent calendar, so I was looking forward to trying all the different kinds of hot chocolate Gourmet du Village provides. I've been a fan of Gourmet du Village for a long time, getting many of their flavoured hot chocolates.

So imagine my disappointment when I find out that half the hot chocolates are double truffle. There were others like white chocolate, caramel, gingerbread, and candy cane, but half were double truffle. Where's the creme brulee, the french vanilla, the orange chocolate, cherry chocolate, and all the others they make? Sure, each packet has a unique picture on it, but I'm for the hot chocolate flavours, not the pretty pictures.

The other gripe I have, per the title, is it's not a real advent calendar. In all the advent calendars I've had throughout my life, including unique ones like coffee pods, beers, wines, etc., they all work by opening a flap and pulling out the item from a compartment hidden behind the flap. But not this thing. You open a flap and you're presented with a picture of the "suggested hot chocolate". To get the actual packet you have to open the box, dump out all the packets, and find the one matching the picture of the day.

Overall, this has been a disappointment. Gourmet du Village needs to do better. Their hot chocolate flavours are fantastic, but their so-called advent calendar is a joke. I won't be buying this again.