Little Pots of Jam

How Advent is About Jesus Not Your Gimmicky Jam Calendar

File: At Breakfast (Laurits Andersen Ring) - Nationalmuseum - 21399.tif - Wikimedia Commons

Can I just check out now and not bother to try to endure the next month? Is there a reason for me to continue to participate in modern life? Is there a cabin in the woods I can retreat into and not emerge until some time in Lent? I can’t even remember what I was looking for, but I accidentally clicked on this deathless piece of prose and now I can never get those three and a half minutes back. Here’s the title:

How the Bonne Maman Advent Calendar Became a Hot Commodity: More than a year of research and development plus word-of-mouth has kept the French jam company’s calendars in shopping carts.

Oh for Pete’s sake. I’m sick of these super obvious and boring Search Engine Optimization Titles. It’s so annoying. Articles should be given clever and alluring names, befitting the thoughtfulness and sensibilities of the reader. Instead, the whole game is in the title and yet I clicked anyway. What is wrong with me? Also, how on earth does the New York Times have “time” (get it) to take up such an enormous amount of their precious journalistic moments with something as inconsequential as the Bonne Maman Advent Calendar? Did Bonne Mamman pay them a lot of money?

Also, I am excessively annoyed by the trite and obvious tone of all the titles in the New York Times, no matter the subject: “How President Biden Changed His Mind on Pardoning Hunter Biden,” “An Arctic Hamlet Is Sinking Into the Thawing Permafrost,” “Most Cyber Monday Deals Stink. These Are Great,” “Stereotyping Jewish Women is Dangerously Common,” “More Arctic Air and Snow Are on the Way.” Okay, I guess. But honestly, I feel like headline writing would be so much more interesting if Google wasn’t around to crush us all.

Anyway, back to the question of jam. ‘Tis the season for me to complain about everything and everyone:

Maybe it’s the inspired flavors like pear with cocoa nibs or pineapple and yuzu, the affordability ($45) or the cute little jars that can be repurposed to hold spices or jewelry. But out of the many covetable food-based Advent calendars, those from a 53-year-old jam company are the hottest commodity. The allure of Bonne Maman’s 25 days of fruit, chocolate and honey spreads in flavors both expected and unexpected have put its jam calendars at the top of Amazon’s most popular Advent calendar list, and moved TikTok creators and lifestyle publications to herald their annual arrival. And it keeps creeping up: In 2023 they became available to order on Aug. 15, and this year on July 18.

Isn’t that just precious.

“It’s been organic growth, but stepping up fast for sure,” said Sylvain Dronet, the chief executive of Andros North America, which owns Bonne Maman. “If there is really one moment everybody remembers in our company as a turning point, it is the pandemic. It was hard to be together, it was hard to share moments, so this Advent calendar came as a tool to virtually open it together.

Ah yes, the pandemic. What a hard time that was, when people weren’t allowed to go to church, which is the best and only place to learn about and observe Advent. Connecting and “sharing moments” was difficult for everyone. But if you wanted to share ultimate moments, like worshipping God, like feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ, you were kind of out of luck. Virtual jam only goes so far.

Fortunately for me, by Advent, my church had opened up, though with many constraints. December 2020 was unutterably somber. We had lost 90% of our nursing home shut-ins (the rest died the following year) and I had to reorganize my Christmas Pageant to follow the state guidelines. With death on one side and Andrew Cuomo on the other, shared moments over jam were not sufficient for the day. What I needed then—and need now—is Jesus.

I don’t want to be pedantic, as usual—I never want to be pedantic—but the reason to purchase an Advent calendar is because you believe in Jesus and plan to celebrate the great Feast of his Birth by any means possible. If you need an expansive jam calendar to do it, that’s perfectly fine. But if you aren’t going to believe in and love the Lord Christ and go to church to celebrate his birth, I don’t think you should be allowed to eat little pots of jam. No Jam For You. Go back to the beginning and first learn about Jesus. Then you may have jam.

Of course, attending to that about which we should all be most anxious—like who is God and how we ought to relate to him—is completely beyond the intellectual and spiritual capabilities of the New York Times, but I guess we might as well keep reading anyway:

Bonne Maman was founded in 1971 by members of the Gervoson family in Biars-sur-Cère, France. Since it debuted 30,000 calendars in the United States in 2017, it has increased production by 400 percent, according to the company. A more affordable 12-day version to meet demand was introduced in 2021.

Actually, that’s brilliant—12 days of Christmas with little pots of jam to celebrate the birth of our Lord? That Is Brilliant. Also, Bonne Maman jam is delicious. This is an obvious fact. What is not so obvious, I guess, is why Advent exists and what it is for:

These jam calendars are the latest in a long European tradition of observing Advent. Starting in the early 19th century, German Lutherans logged the days leading up to Christmas by marking walls or doors with chalk or lighting candles. In the 1920s the German publisher Gerhard Lang — who is often credited with inventing printed Advent calendars — popularized them in Munich, by working with well-known children’s book illustrators to publish playful variations. The calendars eventually made their way to the United States with returning servicemen after World War II. For decades, Americans celebrated the 25 days till Christmas with calendars that reveal a piece of chocolate or a toy. Modern Advent calendars skew toward more secular daily gifts spanning every imaginable consumable: wine, bourbon, hot sauce, caviar, cheese, jewelry, puzzles, perfume, candles, socks and pet treats. They’re increasingly popular with retailers and shoppers in Britain and the United States in particular.

Yes yes, yes but answer me this, New York Times, what does the observance of Advent portend? What is a Lutheran? Or, to put it another way, what is a Christian? Why did Gerhard Lang print a calendar? Was it just to make a buck? Or was it possible that Christians were inventing fun and fanciful ways to build excitement about the sacred remembrance of the birth of the Lord Christ? Didn’t Lutherans and Anglicans and everybody really want little children to consider with anticipation and joy the Savior of the World?

When I was little, I used to pour over a red Tasha Tudor Christmas book which I have still. It has poetry and hymns and stories and recipes, including that desolating “Gift of the Magi” story where the woman cuts off her hair and the man sells his pocket watch. Also the heartbreaking one about the tree being cut down and used as the cross for Christ. The beautiful sketches evoke longing and wonder. In a child, they paint a tapestry of desire—for cake, for candles, for Jesus.

But that’s not what the New York Times is doing. Why does this article exist? Why did someone go and find all those links? Aren’t there bigger stories fascinating enough to justify the time and money? Why did I even read this? This is so boring:

Julio Lyon, a pastry chef based in Chicago, plans to pair the Bonne Maman calendar his husband bought for him in October with a cheese Advent calendar from the supermarket chain Aldi, which is offering 17 different calendars this year.

Head Meet Desk.

“There have been so many different Advent calendar varieties on the market, which is great and really gets you into the holidays,” Mr. Lyon said. But it’s the Bonne Maman calendar that he’s wanted “for years.”

Oh well, if he wanted it “for years,” I guess he had better have it.

Claire Dinhut, the London-based author of “The Condiment Book” and the creator of the popular CondimentClaire TikTok account, received her first Bonne Maman Advent calendar in 2021 as a gift from her mother. Ms. Dinhut, who grew up in Los Angeles and has a large U.S. following on TikTok, began posting video reviews of each flavor in the British version, raking in tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments. “It feels like your little moment of the day to enjoy yourself,” she said. In 2022, Bonne Maman sent her a calendar. “That was the year it really caught on and people were doing it along with me.”

And really, that’s what our Lord Christ wanted most when he descended from his glorious throne and came to earth to share our humanity. He wanted us to have little moments of the day to enjoy ourselves. He knows you’re stressed putting all of your TikToks up in a timely manner—for, don’t you know, if your content is going to take off and become “viral”—isn’t that an awful expression—it needs to be relentlessly predictable. The universe needs more of us to stop everything and watch other people eat little pots of jam. Those little special moments for yourself are really what matters in life, plus the TikToks where in we all watch other people enjoying their little moments. Jesus knows we need these little escapes just to cope with a busy season where meeting all of our—and everybody else’s—expectations is preeminent. He doesn’t want you to be sad or uncomfortable.

Bonne Maman begins working on the calendars roughly 18 months in advance, with all research, development and production completed in France. Each calendar contains nine to 10 new flavors, like 2024’s cherry honey chestnut, and apricot with orange blossom spread, alongside repeat favorites like cherry with pink peppercorn; strawberry and rhubarb; and mango, raspberry and lime. The company’s research and development team monitors food trends, like incorporating spices, herbs and flowers into fruit, often seeking an element of surprise. A sweet and spicy trend (better known now as swicy) in 2023, for example, inspired that year’s cherry jam infused with fruity, mild pink peppercorns. If Bonne Maman receives enough requests, a popular flavor can make it into the big jars and onto supermarket shelves, as was the case with calendar favorites like guava, which hit grocery shelves this year, and mango peach, which debuted a few years ago.

I like that—“swicy.” Why not. Personally, I’d really love to be able to watch a video of the Little Drummer Boy bashing away on his wretched drum while Dinhut tastes little pots of jam.

Also, I expect that devout readers of this blog may furrow their brows and begin to accuse me of being puritanical. Why can’t we have jam Advent Calendars and love Jesus at the same time? To which I give a resounding ‘Point Taken.’ I am totally fine with anyone eating jam out of little pots for all the days leading up to Christmas provided you are really going to celebrate Christmas. If you spend so much time each day concentrated on the jam that you forget that the feast is yet to come and what the feast is about, you will be spoiling your spiritual dinner.

This article is too fatuous for words for the very simple reason that, by forgetting the order and purposes for which the entire cosmos was created, the writer can only wander around, jam-faced, fussing about mild pink peppercorns and making up new words that nobody wanted. We don’t have to be serious all the time, nor should we be. However, if this counts for journalism, then journalism is dead. Of course, I am having an awfully good time complaining about it, so sue me.

Last year, Ms. Price and her mother, Olivia Mayer, each bought calendars and reviewed the flavors on a family text chain all December. Peach-mint “had a toothpaste vibe,” Ms. Mayer wrote, giving it two out of 10. Ms. Price gave apricot-banana five out of 10 for its “lovely unusual sweetness” that paired well with cream cheese. “It’s so interesting how different people taste food, and how you bond over it,” Ms. Price said. This year, she convinced her sister and a few co-workers to get Bonne Maman calendars before they sold out. All plan to compare flavor notes. “I do think it’s the perfect way to experience the holidays with friends and loved ones,” she said. “Whereas we might not normally. We talked everyday for a month last year. About jam!”

Well, you know what, Ms. Price and whoever wrote this dumb piece, to overcompensate, I’m going to talk every single day of this month about Jesus….or maybe just most of the days, like usual.

Also, isn’t it enough to steal Christmas and make it about spending money instead of adoring the Word Made Flesh? Can’t you leave Advent Alone? Here is me, shaking my head in Anglican:

So anyway,