Busted Halo’s 2013 Advent Surprise Calendar

Stay tuned! Busted Halo’s® Advent Surprise Calendar will be back in November in time for Advent 2014. In the meantime, you can share www.bustedhalo.com/advent far and wide — that’s where you’ll find our Advent Calendar this year.

For now, here’s last year’s calendar to give you a taste of what’s in store.

Photo Credit: Virginia Wieringa (Dec. 19)
Photo Credit: Catholic News Service / Ali Jarekji, Reuters (Dec. 24)
Photo Credit: Catholic News Service / Mike Crupi, Catholic Courier (Dec. 25)

Advent is a precious time in the Christian calendar. The four weeks leading up to December 25 are meant to be a period of expectant waiting, as we prepare ourselves for the miraculous arrival of our Savior and his gifts of love, hope, joy, and peace.

The reality for most of us, though, is that these are anxious weeks of shopping and holiday planning leading up to a hectic Christmas Day. In the bustle of the holiday season, it’s hard to remember what we’re waiting for.

Completely avoiding the Christmas onslaught may be impossible, but we can make an effort to maintain some connection to the spiritual foundation of this season. Busted Halo’s 2013 Advent Surprise Calendar is here to help with that.

In traditional Advent calendars, children open different windows throughout the season to reveal special surprises. Busted Halo’s Advent Calendar brings its sense of surprise by showing you the whole calendar, but not letting you open each day and find out what’s behind the picture until that day comes along. Over these four weeks of Advent, we will use the themes of hope, love, joy, and peace to help you focus during this busy season. We hope each day’s Daily Jolt and MicroChallenge will help you prepare to welcome the gift of Christ this Christmas.

How the digital Advent calendar works

Each day, that day’s link in the Advent calendar will start working, leading to a special Advent-themed Daily Jolt, with an opportunity for reflection, a MicroChallenge, and a chance to win a prize. Some of the reflections come from unlikely sources, and the challenges help you to take an action, usually a small one, based on the reflection.

This year you can enter our Advent Contest EVERY DAY and be placed in a random drawing to win the contest’s grand prize — an iPad Air! An added bonus: If you share the contest with your friends through Facebook, and they enter the contest, you receive more chances to win.

Entries must be accompanied by both e-mail and snail mail addresses. (Don’t worry, this info won’t be given out to anyone; it just makes it easier to track contestants and winners.) The 16 GB iPad Air Grand Prize will be awarded after December 25 in a random drawing from all eligible entries received during Advent. See the contest rules here.

All you need to do to enter each day is come back to our calendar, open a new day’s link and fill out an entry form. You can also enter directly through Facebook. And remember — if you share the contest with your friends and they enter, that gives you more chances to win the grand prize.

As you await the coming of our Lord on Christmas Day, use the Busted Halo Advent Calendar to remind yourself what this season is really about.