{"id":1476,"date":"2026-09-17T16:35:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T16:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/demo.famethemes.com\/techone\/?p=39"},"modified":"2026-09-30T14:56:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T14:56:23","slug":"neath-advent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/?p=1476","title":{"rendered":"Neath Counts Down to Christmas With Stella"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spar in Neath has heralded the coming of Christmas by putting its traditional advent calendars on sale this week, marking 100 days until the big day.<\/p>\n

The calendars contain 24 bottles of Stella Artois behind numbered cardboard windows, with each one individually finished by a member of staff using a Stanley knife.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The traditional Neath advent calendar. Some windows appear to have opened ahead of schedule.<\/strong><\/em><\/h6>\n

\u201cWe like to preserve the magic of Christmas,\u201d said store manager Brian Evans. \u201cYou open a little door each morning and discover what\u2019s inside. It\u2019s Stella, obviously, but we mix the numbers up to keep it interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staff have reminded customers that the first window should remain closed until December 1.
\n\u201cI thought we\u2019d started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Local resident who wished to remain anonymous admitted he had already reached December 9.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s confusing putting them out in September,\u201d Terry Davies, 56, said. \u201cI thought we\u2019d started. My wife says I\u2019ve ruined Christmas, but she says that most years and usually I have to wait until the actual day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The store confirmed that replacement calendars were available for customers whose first one had suffered \u201can unexpectedly short Advent\u201d.<\/p>\n

A luxury edition is also being considered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exactly the same,\u201d explained Mr Evans. \u201cBut we\u2019ll put a bow on it and charge another six quid.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spar in Neath has heralded the coming of Christmas by putting its traditional advent calendars on sale this week, marking 100 days until the big day. The calendars contain 24 bottles of Stella Artois behind numbered cardboard windows, with each one individually finished by a member of staff using …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,18],"tags":[91,92,24],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-news","tag-christmas","tag-culture","tag-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1546,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/1546"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/welshbollocks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}