Anticipation is half the fun of the Christmas Season, with the countdown to the long summer holidays, days at the beach, and a more relaxed lifestyle eagerly awaited at the end of a busy year. It's a beautiful time of year, with the charm of fairy lights in trees and everybody just a bit happier than usual, when nobody needs an excuse to open a bottle of bubbles to share. 

The tradition of the Advent Calendar - began in the early 20th century & still loved. 

In our house, no matter how old we get, we love the tradition of the Advent Calendar, with the fun of not knowing what lays behind each number, and all the while, counting down with anticipation.

(And maybe we love the excuse to eat a little chocolate, let's be truthful?)

But this year, we are looking for a dairy-free & vegan chocolate advent calendar, so the hunt has begun to find one with quality chocolate behind those little doors. 

Then we got to thinking .... what if we selected the vegan versions of one of our favourite local chocolatiers, Haighs, and placed the little morsels in a pocket style advent calendar, which could be used again each year once re-filled with deliciousness? This was starting to sound better and better.

Most dark chocolate is vegan by default (for instance, Nestlé dark choc bits are vegan, who knew), so it's often quite possible to select carefully and find the appropriate chocolates amongst both the artisan (like Haighs), and the bigger chocolate makers. 

This will be the
Most Delicious Vegan Chocolate Advent Calendar Imaginable

We discovered that Haigh's even make a pocket style advent calendar, with each pocket just the right size to fit one of their chocolates - but any washable style pocket type calendar would do too. 

Here is the list of just some of the dairy-free, egg-free chocolates we found from Haighs:-

Individual Dark Chocolates:

Marzipan
Coffee Walnut Cream
Turkish Delight
Peppermint Cream
Chocolate Ginger
Plum Liqueur
Passionfruit Cream
Mandarin Cream

Other yummies:

Dark chocolate aprichocs
Gift box of dark chocolate peppermint creams
Dark chocolate speckles
Dark marzipan bars
Lime & Chilli Grenada single origin dark chocolate
Dark scorched almonds (favourite!!)
 

Wrapped Novelty Chocolates:

Dark chocolate frogs
Dark peppermint frogs
Dark chocolate heart
Dark chocolate Christmas bell

It's surprising how often vegan options are available - just ask. 

We assumed, when we began eating a vegan diet (we had been living a vegan lifestyle for quite a while prior to that, but ate a vegetarian diet), that it would be hard to find vegan foods in so many food stores which didn't specialise in animal-free products. 

That couldn't have been further from the truth, as we are continuously delighted with discoveries after either turning over packets to read the ingredients, or by simply asking the question:

Ok, that's nice. But I am not near Haighs so how can I find ready made dairy free and vegan advent calendars? 

While hunting, we also found these other (ready made) advent calendars
which tick the dairy free and vegan box:- 

So it turns out, we vegans are actually spoiled for choice

in the Christmas Countdown this year!

And yay to that! 

images : vintage Christmas scene / window wishes / wreath / vintage advent calendar 1946

Oh, btw, this isn't a sponsored post - we just adore Haigh's chocolate, and thought we would share our adventures on finding a vegan alternative to what can otherwise be a dairy filled chocolate calendar.