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the freckleskies 2025 advent calendar!

oh wow, so meta? so out of the box? so brave

anyway, it's been, uh, eight months since i last laid eyes on you, much less even think to speak to you, so i need to get my thoughts in order for this one. i figure we can do that together and call it a productive advent calendar entry. maybe we'll catch up too a little, hear about my last eight months. maybe, no promises

alright what's uhhh first, theme? i don't really have one. i've been thinking quite a bit for themes that aren't just my own specific interests (2023's cardsmas) or ones that won't contribute to my weight and eating habits blowing up (last year's food reviewmas). hmm. ok, yeah, i think i've got some pretty good ideas

second, the side calen-- what?

no i can't tell you what the ideas are, are you insane? you can't skip ahead in an advent calendar, that's the whole point of it. you'll find out when the day comes. n-no man, when i said we'd come up with it together i didn't mean i'd just give it all to you, i meant it more like i'll do it and you can watch me, like, we can hang out

no man, that's naughty behaviour. you'll get coal dude! stop it, seriously. stop it before i look up pngs of coal

anyway. where were we. ah, right. second on the agenda, the side calendar. we gotta stop gambling that wasn't too fun last time. i tried looking for another cheese calendar since that's kind of a classic at this point, but they're either not making it anymore or it's been sold out everywhere at my local shops. it's ok, no need to be too upset. think about it right, how many cheese puns can there even be on this earth? i'm sure we've been through most of them, a significant chunk at least

instead i found this other one, the NOMO Ultimate Choc Advent

it's plant based chocolate, something i've never had before and was intrigued to try as they appear to have a variety of flavours in the calendar. i thought, neat! i can do a sort of minor food reviewmas simulacrum. i'm very curious how it fares against the usual chocolate. the ingredients are primarily sugar, cocoa, and rice powder... which unintuitively is not rice flour, instead its dried rice syrup and starch (and some flour). interesting!

anyway, with the promise to be the ULTIMATE choc advent offering the ULTIMATE choc treat inside, how could this be a miss? but! it's not just that! there's another side to it which i didn't expect but i much appreciate. see the thing about the nomo togetherness tree inside? no? let me show you

we do get some more daily variety to it! there's nice little side quests! alright, i'm sold, i think this is gonna be great

let me wash my hands of all this coal, hold on

alright, let's see what we've got

sure, i can do that, there's a massive tree in my department's building that's full of lights. i'll count that for now. we're getting festive already!

as for the chocolate, wow this is pretty good. it actually tastes like chocolate, which, in retrospect, is probably what i should've expected. maybe i'm biased by all the stevia chocolate mom used to buy when i was in high school that left a weird soapy aftertaste, but this is actually pretty good! the chocolate is tasty and the texture is nice, soft, a little chewey, melty, really an all-rounder. maybe the caramel is doing it the favour of covering odd plant based traits or whatever, but i don't think so. for some reason i approached this like it was plant beef or something but cocoa is really not inherently non-vegan huh. this world can be so beautiful at times

alright alright, that should do it. we did it! yay! give yourself a pat on the back, dear reader, for we together saved the freckleskies 2025 advent calendar. many readers can't say this about themselves, you know. oh, you~, of course i'll be here tomorrow, you needn't worry about it. and the day after, and the day after that, and all the days of christmas!

what's that? after christmas? let's not get too ahead of ourselves dear reader, we've got a pretty nice thing going on for us here, let's enjoy the moment and not think about the future too much :)