Christmas is just around the corner and I’m sure many kids have already began the Christmas count down, anxiously anticipating each day till Christmas day, when they can open their presents in an excited frenzy. Each December, as part of our holiday traditions, we put out a wooden (Advent calendar) Christmas tree, and my teens like discovering the special candy treat hiding behind each numbered door. There aren’t any doors in the new Binny’s Advent Calendar app, and you won’t find any sweet candy to taste, but this Free iPhone and iPad Entertainment app is sure to be a visual treat. This Advent calendar isn’t your ordinary-run-of-the-mill calendar because it features a sparse blue and white cityscape, quirky original artwork, a good-natured, alien-looking elf character (with a funny helium-type voice), and is packed with 25 days of amusing and whacky activity fun.
I’ve already begun to look at some of the Advent calendar applications for this year, but it’s a test of patience when you have to wait until December 1st to see the goodies, but this Free Advent calendar app doesn’t make you wait. It provides a special code to unlock all the activities. I felt like a little kid scrolling through the cool cityscape looking to uncover all the hidden activities behind numbered street signs, building plaques, building signs, and window awnings as “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” played in the background. The activities are a silly and strange, but amusingly fun.
Starting out your kids will discover a variety of old-timey records to play on a toy record player (like most of us had as a kid) — but that’s not the fun part, it’s being able to play them at varying speeds: Slow….then Fast…then Play (at regular speed)…..then Slow again….and so on. Beware, your kids will drive you crazy with this — or maybe you’ll have so much fun it’ll be the other way around. There are several jigsaw-type puzzles to put together, with real wood-snapping-in-place sounds. Each time time an activity is completed, you’ll hear a smurf-type — “Yaaaaay!” And, the variety continues on with memory matching card games, drawing and stickers, a crazy juggling squirrel (?), scratch and reveal pictures with real “scratch off ” sounds, a Christmas tree decorating activity, but one of the oddest activities involves taping on the song lyrics to control the speed at which the voice sings back to you. Almost everything in this application engaged me and was interesting, but the only thing that seemed “off” was the quality of voice recordings, which was slightly lower in volume compared to the rest of the app sounds, and when tapping on the song/lyric game, it was a tad wonky with minor delays here and there.
Aside from the nice feature of being able to open all days and activities ahead of time, this Free Advent calendar app has many games that can be replayed, and your kids can share their drawings with friends and family through email as well. Yes, Binny’s Advent Calendar app is nothing like your traditional Christmas Advent calendars. It feels a little bit like entering a bizarro world with a 70′s- Retro vibe, but you can’t help but be drawn in by the cool original artwork, unique concept, and overall zaniness found throughout this Free iPhone and iPad Entertainment app. Honestly, I found it to be quaint and charming at the same time.
Download The Advent Calendar App – Binny’s Advent Calendar – Eccentric App Now
iTunes iPhone
iTunes iPad
Google Play
About Lisa Vallez
