Photographed by Anna Jay.

In my opinion, advent calendars are as integral to that ~Christmas feeling~ as fir trees and mulled wine. I've loved them ever since I was a kid and had to split a single chocolate one (bought from our local parish, natch) with my two brothers, meaning I got my chocolate mouthful only once every three days. But becoming too old to have my mum buy my advent calendar coincided with me no longer being able to comfortably digest dairy. An advent calendar all to myself was just within my grasp, before it slipped away. It was, to put it mildly, a fucking travesty.

That was 2013 and now the vegan chocolate market is positively booming. Where there was one expensive, paltry option, there are now dozens of vegan advent calendars to choose from. To work out which ones are worth the cash, we assembled a crack team of tasters (one current vegan, one former vegan, someone who's trying her hand at a plant-based diet, a chocolate sceptic and someone with no strong opinions either way) to survey as many vegan advent calendars as we could find. From £2.49 to £24.99, naturally vegan dark chocolate to rice milk alternatives, all tastes and budgets are catered for. God bless us, every one!