Papier Advent Calendar Review: A Premium Treat for Stationery Lovers

Introduction

Advent calendars have outgrown chocolate. Over the last few years, art, craft, and stationery versions have become some of the most sought-after seasonal releases, and the Papier advent calendar is one of the most talked about. It reportedly sells out every year, which is exactly why it earned a spot in this season’s lineup of stationery calendar reviews.

The big question is simple: at $175, is this a thoughtful luxury for someone who loves paper goods, or a pricey box of note cards? Here’s the full picture.

What Is the Papier Advent Calendar?

Papier is a brand specialising in highly customizable, artist-designed stationery, including notebooks, planners, and invitations that can be personalized with names, initials, or quotes for free. The brand is also known for its commitment to sustainability, and that ethos shows throughout this calendar.

This is a 24-day advent calendar aimed squarely at “the ultimate stationery lover.” It costs $175, which places it well above a typical stationery haul but below the ultra-premium pen calendars that can run $600 or more.

Unboxing and First Impressions

The box itself is the first surprise. It is genuinely enormous, with multiple tiers that pull out, drawers with proper construction, and a finish that makes it probably the prettiest advent calendar in this price bracket. The sides come out, the drawers feel sturdy, and the whole thing reads as high quality before you have opened a single door. This must have taken a long time to put together, and a large part of that $175 clearly went into the packaging.

Day one sets the tone: a gorgeous gold metal clip with a small loop, likely a pen holder for a binder or notebook. Even before you understand every item’s purpose, the feel of the materials makes the brand’s positioning clear.

Days 2 to 8: Journals, Lists and Clips

Day two delivers a gratitude journal with beautiful gold foiling, designed for morning and evening entries about what you are grateful for. Day three brings more gold page clips, tiny corner markers that work as bookmarks for small journals. They are cute, unique, and very solid.

Day four is a compact to-do list with red sprayed edges, a surprisingly practical daily item. It is small, but that can be a feature: keeping tasks on paper is a decent way to spend less time glued to your phone. Day five adds a charming gold lobster-shaped bookmark, better suited to physical books than the corner clips.

Day six brings little reminder Post-it notes, and day seven is a standout: a small pen pouch with a genuinely nice zip, decorated with gold stars, made to stick onto a journal and hold a single pen. Unlike cheap versions of this accessory, the build quality here is obvious. Day eight rounds out the week with a tiny journal featuring a horse on the cover, ideal for tossing in a bag.

Days 9, 10 and 13: The Pens

The pens are where this calendar gets genuinely exciting. Day nine is a ballpoint pen with a velvet-feel finish and a squiggly gold clip detail. It is not a fountain pen, but it feels far more expensive than a standard ballpoint.

Day ten arrives in a cracker-style box with another very fancy, heavy ballpoint pen. The designs here are far more distinctive and personal than the ultra-expensive pens found in pen-focused advent calendars, and the aesthetic is collectible in the best way. Day thirteen is arguably the highlight: a sage green and gold ballpoint that feels like it was designed for a specific kind of person, and for many stationery fans, that person will be them.

Days 11 to 16: Stamps, Sticky Notes and Fine Liners

Day eleven offers small Post-it tabs for annotating pages. Day twelve delivers the calendar’s most delightful surprise: a cute to-do stamp set with a tiny ink pad, plus little stamps including a shamrock and a heart. It works well and stamps cleanly, though a small storage container for the ink would be a welcome addition.

Day fourteen contains a couple of pocket-size bullet journals, handy if you have actually found a system for bullet journaling. Day fifteen brings washi tape, which sticks well, though washi tape is a cheap item to produce and it is refreshing that the calendar does not lean on it heavily. Day sixteen features three fine liner pens with that signature gold clip, in a lovely dark green and pink palette.

Days 17 to 24: The Final Stretch

Day seventeen marks the move to the bottom tier of the box, which is sturdy enough to be genuinely reusable. Several reviewers have noted it would work well as a jewelry box, and that genuinely tracks with the brand’s sustainability focus.

Day eighteen contains adorable little highlighter pens shaped like tiny erasers, with a soft, expensive feel. They have a hard nib rather than a felt tip, which takes some adjustment. The same day also includes mini thank-you cards in matching clashing-but-harmonious patterns. Day nineteen is a daily agenda list pad with priorities, schedule, and time blocks, and day twenty brings more note cards for gifting.

Day twenty-one offers paper stickers, day twenty-two delivers sustainable cardboard page holders marked “Goals, plans and to-do”, and day twenty-three is a leather corner page marker in a lovely color. Day twenty-four closes things out with the daily planner: a large pad of day sheets for writing down schedules and small notes, pairing neatly with the sticky notes and stickers from earlier days.

What’s Missing

One honest gap: there is no full-size journal or planner for the year. A proper ring binder or a six-month to year-long planner would have elevated this from a collection of accessories to a complete stationery system. Many of the items are small, and some, like the page holders, are easy to lose if you are not deliberate about where you keep them.

Is It Worth $175?

Objectively, this is expensive for the type of items included. Note cards, clips, and sticky notes are not costly goods on their own. What justifies the price is the quality of the design, the sustainability commitments, the packaging, and above all, the experience of opening 24 beautifully made compartments.

That makes this a “one and done” purchase for most people: a special-occasion indulgence rather than a yearly habit. It is also a genuinely strong gift for a stationery lover, precisely because it feels expensive in the hand and looks the part on a desk.

For anyone deeply into stationery, deskwares, journals, and cute pens, this would be a thrill to receive. For someone indifferent to paper goods, the value will not land, and that is a fair place to land too. Advent calendars at this level are about the ritual as much as the contents, and this one respects all 24 days.

Conclusion

The Papier advent calendar is the most polished stationery advent calendar in its price range: a stunning reusable box, consistently thoughtful design, gold detailing everywhere, and a handful of items, like the pens, the pen pouch, and the daily planner pad, that will genuinely get used. It is not a value play, and it will not convert anyone who does not care about stationery. But for the right person, it is exactly the kind of indulgent, well-made seasonal treat that the category does best.