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Woman shares hilarious reactions to unboxing a $825 luxury Chanel advent calendar

chanel, advent calendar, chanel advent calendar

@eliseharmon on TikTok

Sure, you could celebrate the holidays with a traditional advent calendar filled with chocolates. Maybe if you want to indulge, you can splurge on one from Godiva (yes, they have one).

But what if you want the ultimate advent calendar experience? After all, who needs tradition when you can have luxury.

As it turns out, several high-end brands are offering this option, including an $825 first-time edition Chanel No. 5 advent calendar. Shaped like a giant perfume bottle, it does give off an exuberant air of class and sophistication.

Elise Harmon (@eliseharmon) excitedly purchased her premium calendar in store. Though Chanel’s website shares what waits inside, Harmon had no idea what to expect.

Impressed by the initial impression of the product’s “10 out of 10” packaging, Harmon decided to document her unboxing on TikTok. That video soon went viral, mostly for Harmon's hilarious underwhelm. But also roasting Chanel's questionable quality control.

For one thing, it didn’t even have a full calendar.


“It starts on day number five…I guess for Chanel No. 5…” Harmon says. Red flag number one.

But hey, all in the name of marketing, right? Remaining optimistic, Harmon opened up day number nine, which had, drumroll please … stickers.

“This has to be a joke, this is a joke. Stickers?! Stickers?!” she says in shock.

On a positive note, she did seem happy about the tiny hand cream that followed.

Plus the video was teeming with hilarious comments:

"Those stickers better keep my life together."

"It’s giving me white elephant gift exchange when u finally get the biggest present but inside it’s just a toilet plunger."

"Say Chanel is going broke without saying they’re going broke."

So, yeah. There’s that.

Sure, Harmon might have received some nice lipstick and a tree ornament (yay!), but she also now has to figure out what to do with an empty dust bag, a magnet, some temporary tattoos and a flipbook.

Oh and let’s not forget the keychain.

“I’m really not sure how I’m supposed to live-laugh-love under these conditions,” Harmon jokes, which I might steal as my new catchphrase.

@eliseharmon

Reply to @mishmasharen

♬ The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You) - Nat King Cole Trio

The real controversy happened after Diet Prada shared Harmon's story on their company Instagram, revealing that some items were previously given away for free with other purchases.

Still, Harmon remains in good spirits about it, sharing her misfortune with a sense of humor.

@eliseharmon

bless this mess

♬ Sleigh Ride - Leroy Anderson

Though the whole debacle was hilariously documented, and yes, points to some flawed logic we have about expectation versus reality, it also sheds light on a new cultural shift as well.

Chanel is not the only company to offer these holiday items at exorbitant prices. You can get one from Neiman Marcus ($300), Acqua di Parma ($600) or even Tiffany's ($150,000). And even if those other brands didn’t include something as egregious as a flipbook, odds are at least some of those items aren’t exactly worth the overall price.

Why? Because now more than ever, luxury needs to elicit a genuine feeling through quality experience. Simply pasting a logo onto a piece of plastic isn’t going to do it.

What’s more, Harmon has unboxed a whole new level of responsibility and accountability belonging to high-end companies. Simply put, if companies slack, the betrayal consumers experience will be made public. And virally followed.

Since then, Harmon has become something of an advent calendar influencer, as several companies sent her samples, which have gotten positive reviews. So there’s no need to “bah humbug” all the advent calendars out there.

And it goes without saying, but quality experiences don’t have to be bought. Even during the most overspending inducing season of the year.

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Homeless man catches family's two children and dogs dropped from burning apartment building

"He was right underneath and he was like 'Yes, throw your daughters out, I'm going to catch them, I'm going to get them.'"

Man catches entire family as they jump from burning building.

House fires are devastating for families. In a matter of minutes, you could lose all of your belongings and a place to live, or worse, you could lose loved ones. A family in Phoenix, Arizona, recently found themselves facing the reality of their own home in flames. Claudia Jimenez told CBS News that she woke up trapped in her burning apartment with her two daughters, with nothing to do but yell for help in the hopes that someone would hear her.

The mom's screams were answered by Joe Hollins, a homeless man who was camping nearby with his wife. Hollins didn't hesitate to try to find a way to help. With no way out and the fire department still nowhere on the scene, Jimenez had to trust the stranger who was standing below.

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Pediatrician shares two simple tips that could save a child's life at a pool party

"The more folks present, the safer the pool is, right? Wrong."

Photo by Ash Dowie on Unsplash

If there's a body of water anywhere, a designated adult needs to have their eyes on it.

It's that time of year when the weather across the country is warm enough for families to enjoy outdoor barbecues, picnics and pool parties. That means it's also the time of year when tragedy will strike a certain percentage of families who get blindsided by how quickly and easily a child can drown in a backyard pool, even when they're surrounded by people who care about them and their safety.

We've all been at a gathering where adults are coming and going, chatting, setting up food, taking trips to the bathroom, all while kids are busy playing in the water. In such scenarios, it's easy to assume that someone else is keeping an eye on the pool.

But as pediatrician Diane Arnaout has shared, the harrowing reality is that the more people there are at a pool party the more likely it is that a child could slip into the pool or become distressed in the water without anyone noticing.

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Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

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According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

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Musician uses traditional Chinese instrument to create hypnotic cover of 'Hotel California'

There are literally hundreds of covers of this song floating around on the internet, but this one has its own unique flair.

Moyun/Youtube

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The Eagles' hit song, “Hotel California,” has been covered countless times over the years by a variety of artists, including the likes of Nancy Sinatra, the Gypsy Kings and that guy at your local karaoke spot.

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Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
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Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

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We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

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