The holiday season is nearly here, and for many people, that means advent calendars. These festive calendars count down the days until Christmas, often with little gifts or treats behind each numbered door. Given their popularity during this season, can advent calendars actually be published in print newspapers? As a professional custom advent calendar printing manufacturer, I will help you find it out!
A Brief History of Advent Calendars
To answer this question, it helps to understand the history behind advent calendars. This tradition dates back to the 19th century in Germany, when families would use chalk to mark off days on their doors or walls counting down to Christmas. Over time, publishers and printers started creating decorative calendars with 25 numbered doors – one for each day of December leading up to Christmas Eve.
Originally, these printed calendars revealed religious verses or images intended as daily devotionals during the Advent season. It wasn’t until later in the 20th century that the tiny doors began concealing Christmas-themed chocolates and candies. Nowadays, you can find advent calendars filled with small toys, beauty products, Legos, and more. Their purpose extends beyond religion too – they’re now popular simply as whimsical ways to count down to a holiday.
Different Ways Newspapers Publish Advent Calendars
Given the long history and modern-day prevalence of advent calendars, newspapers have adopted clever ways of incorporating them into their print editions:
Daily Holiday-Themed Content
A popular approach is including a small advent-style feature daily from December 1st through Christmas Eve. This might be:
- A festive illustration or cartoon
- A holiday-inspired riddle, joke or trivia question
- A recipe for a seasonal dessert or cocktail
- A brief story or poem capturing the spirit of the season
- DIY gift ideas or Christmas craft tutorials
Sprinkling this type of joyful holiday content throughout the month not only spreads cheer but provides readers an engaging activity.
Cut-Out or Pop-Out Design
Some newspapers create actual cut-out advent calendar centerfolds for readers to assemble themselves. These printable pages have designated doors that readers can cut open each day to reveal wintery pictures, jokes or verses.
The doors might conceal half a image that combines with the next day’s door to make a full picture. Or the 25 doors might come together to construct a larger Christmas village scene.
A 3D “pop-out” calendar with sections that physically pop forward to assemble a gingerbread house or Santa’s workshop makes for an even more interactive newspaper advent calendar.
Giveaways and Coupons
In keeping with modern non-religious advent calendars packed with goodies, newspapers are jumping aboard too. Behind calendar doors might be special daily coupons or discount codes for advertisers and retail partners.
On certain dates, the door could reveal a contest to win donated prizes like restaurant gift cards, hotel stays or show tickets. This engages readers while promoting local businesses.
Puzzles and Games
Newspapers catering to game lovers often format their advent calendar content as a series of puzzles building in difficulty as Christmas draws closer. Crosswords, Sudoku, word searches, scrambled phrases…any type of brain teaser can work. Solving an advent-style puzzle a day appeals to such newspaper subscribers.
Learning Opportunities
For publications read by students, teachers and parents, an educational spin on advent calendars might have the most appeal. Behind each door or box could highlight a historical fact or cultural tradition related to holidays around the world. Young readers get to learn something new while gearing up for Christmas.
The Benefits of Advent Calendar Content
We’ve covered several creative options for publishing advent-style content in newspapers. But why go through the effort of specially formatting 25 days worth of holiday content? What are the benefits?
Drives Readership and Sales
This type of serialized, interactive content offers newspapers a competitive edge to attract more readers – and more readers mean more circulation and sales. Providing a delightful reason for subscribers to eagerly open the paper daily wins loyalty.
Fosters Community
During a season centered around togetherness, advent calendar perks give people something positive to bond over and talk about with family, friends and coworkers. That sense of community carries over to the newspaper sponsoring it.
Promotional Platform
Alongside cheer and camaraderie, serialized holiday content enables newspapers promotion opportunities. Sponsors, advertisers and partners get repeated exposure for 25 days straight. Door prizes, giveaways and coupons all support local businesses while keeping readers engaged.
Supplements Holiday Coverage
Let’s be honest – after the 100th story on Christmas shopping, festive events or holiday travel, the news can get repetitious. Embedding an advent calendar offers newspapers entertaining content to break up heavy reporting rotated annually.
Key Considerations and Conclusion
While advent calendars lend themselves well to all sorts of clever newspaper integrations, publishers still need ample lead time for planning and coordination. The production effort behind 25 days of unique holiday content – whether illustrations, puzzles, photos or articles – should not be underestimated.
Securing sponsorships to underwrite upfront costs can mitigate financial risks. And leveraging digital formats and QR codes streamlines opportunities without added printing expenses.
At the end of the day, deciding whether or not to publish advent calendar content comes down to knowing your readership. Although the universal appeal of Christmas makes these count downs broadly enjoyed, metrics indicating engagement will confirm if audiences respond favorably.
For many newspapers, an advent calendar serialized throughout the month of December offers content that connects emotionally with readers. Plus opportunities to support local advertisers and partners add community value beyond spreading holiday cheer. As long as publishers carefully weigh benefits vs. resource demands upfront, unveiling these special countdowns can become a beloved annual tradition all over the printed page.