Best Disney Advent Calendars for Christmas 2026

Disney Advent Calendars are a great way to count down to Christmas with seasonal stories, holiday gifts, and other fun in the 24 days leading up to December 25th. We’ve down these for a while, but are doing more now that we have a daughter. This lists the best LEGO, book, collectible and other countdowns to get into the spirit of the season.

We originally wrote this post prior to last Christmas partly as the fruits of extensive research we had done into Advent Calendars and partly to solicit feedback from seasoned parents about which ones your kids love. The consensus was that ones with books were best and that was 100% correct. We did a few different calendars and, without a doubt, the one with books was the top pick.

Not every story was a winner, but about 75% were hits, and the illustrations were lovely in all of them. Not all of the stories were holiday-themed, which I didn’t love at the time, but that has meant we’ve gotten mileage out of them post-holidays. They’re the perfect length and just all-around winners with Baby Bricker. So we’ll definitely be picking up more of those for Christmas.

We’re back with our first update for 2026, as the countdown to Christmas 2026 is officially underway now that we’re inside the 100 day mark! Along with that, LEGO has released its lineup of 2026 Advent calendars, a couple of which are already on sale. Here’s a quick rundown:

• LEGO Marvel Advent Calendar 2026
• LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar 2026
• LEGO Disney Princess Advent Calendar 2026
• LEGO City Advent Calendar 2026

Not only were these just released, but the Marvel and Star Wars Advent calendars are already 22% off. The Marvel one looks pretty cool, and our daughter has become a big fan of all things Marvel somehow. This looks right in her wheelhouse, and we’ll probably pick it up now that she’s aging into LEGOs.

At the same time, I’m probably willing to wait for a better deal, as the LEGO Frozen Advent Calendar ended up on sale for 47% off last year. The best deals on Advent calendars tend to come around Black Friday, and then again after Christmas.

With the latest updates out of the way, here’s a recap of last year’s list…

LEGO Disney Frozen Advent Calendar – The LEGO Disney Frozen Advent Calendar building set features 231 pieces across 24 buildable surprises, such as a seesaw, gingerbread house, Sir Jorgenbjorgen, fireplace with stockings and a wreath, presents, Olaf’s sleigh, a wreath with candles, a micro bell and letter, an ice table, and and much more.

Kids can dream up pretend play adventures with the included Elsa, Anna and Kristoff minidolls, attach Sven to Olaf’s sleigh for high-speed fun, put presents under the ice tree and hang stockings on the fireplace. After the countdown to Christmas ends, kids can transform the LEGO advent calendar box into an interactive game board where up to 5 players can help Disney characters collect holiday treasures.

LEGO Disney Advent Calendar – Surprise kids aged 5 and up with a 253-piece buildable toy packed with 24 days of characters, activities and surprises. Each day offers a new festive build or character to inspire play, plus the Advent calendar box turns into a game board. This Advent calendar includes Elsa, Tiana, Ariel, Mirabel and Moana LEGO Disney micro doll figures, plus Pua, Snowgie and Sven characters, presents and much more. 

We bought this one last year on Black Friday for a deep discount, and are now holding onto it until Megatron is old enough for LEGOs. We may or may not have purchased a lot of LEGOs over the last couple of years with this excuse in mind. The “we” in the previous two sentences might be just me, as I try to nudge our daughter towards my favorite fascination as a child. (Next up, Ghostbusters and TMNT!)

Sometimes past-year versions will pop-up at a deeper discount, so it’s worth checking the LEGO Advent Calendar listings on Amazon to see everything that’s available.

Mickey & Friends Advent Calendar Box – Family Christmas Traditions – This Disney Mickey & Friends Advent calendar celebrates family holiday traditions and features a large hardcover picture book with an all-new original story. Notations throughout the book will prompt the reader to join in the fun with their family as Mickey and the gang swap holiday stories and share their favorite Christmas traditions with one another.

Each of the 12 Advent calendar perforated windows holds a single ornament that correlates to a Christmas tradition discussed in the story. As each family tradition is completed, you can hang the included ornament to decorate your very own 3D Christmas tree. This one is tempting for us, probably in no small part due to “traditions” being right there in the name. But for that, this one probably wouldn’t be in the conversation, since it sounds like a bunch of paper.

Disney Storybook Collection Advent Calendar – This is from the same product line as our recommended autograph book replacement for Walt Disney World.  

This countdown to Christmas features 24 books, each of which are 24-pages. Unwrap a new tale every day from December 1st through December 24. Includes both holiday-themed and everyday stories featuring beloved Disney and Pixar characters.

Funko Pop! Disney Advent Calendar – I won’t rehash my thoughts on the dead-eyed Funko Pops. (Suffice to say, we will not be buying this!) Setting aside personal aesthetic preferences, it’s impossible to deny the quality of the Funko figures. It’s with that in mind that we recommend this. 

While we aren’t the target audience, we nevertheless think this looks like a better option than all of the Advent calendars with too many stickers and paper items. For only a few dollars more, the Funko option appears to be much, much nicer.

Bluey’s Advent Calendar – I don’t know if this technically counts as Disney, but whatever, it’s on Disney+ and everyone seems to love Bluey. (We’ve watched a couple of episodes and are already fans–saving the rest for a little later.) This seems like a nice option in that it’s reasonably priced and has actual accessories and items…and, unfortunately, several stickers. Can’t win ’em all.

The bottom line is that every possible Advent calendar you can possibly imagine, exists. Back in my day, they only made like one Advent calendar, and every kid had that. It was filled with little pieces of candy. If you didn’t like candy, too bad (every kid likes candy, so it worked out).

This isn’t entirely accurate. Advent calendars have been common in the United States since President Eisenhower popularized them while being photographed opening an Advent calendar with his grandchildren. In the ~70 years since, Advent calendars have proliferated, setting new Guinness World Records for price and size, among other things. (If you care, here’s an interesting history of Advent calendars.) Regardless, there are a lot more Advent calendars than there once were.

Nowadays, there’s an Advent calendar for every person and niche interest: coffee, jams, lipstick, cat/dog treats, jerky, “cheesemas,” wine, soap, and so forth. This is also the bad news. It can be difficult to find just the right Advent calendar, especially if you’re indecisiveness and spend inordinate amounts of time doing product research on the internet. We hope this list helped the Disney fans out there find the right Advent calendar for their family’s Christmas countdown!

For more on the holiday season in the parks, see our Guide to Christmas at Walt Disney World or our Guide to Christmas at Disneyland. We also have tons of content in our Christmas category of posts!

If you are planning a Walt Disney World or Disneyland vacation, check out our planning resources! The best place to start is our comprehensive Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide or Disneyland Trip Planning Guide to make the most of your experience!

YOUR THOUGHTS

If you have experience with Advent calendars, are there any recommendations that you or your kids love? Have you already bought your Advent calendar to count down to Christmas? If so, which one did you buy? Anything on this list, or something else? Adding any to your shopping lists? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!