2025 Topps Holiday Advent Calendar: Day 01

My birthday falls in the middle of November.  For the past five or six years, my brother has bought me a LEGO Advent Calendar for my birthday.  However, this year he decided to leave LEGO behind and instead he bought me this 2025 Topps Holiday Advent Calendar.

I'll admit that I had not heard of this particular product, so the gift was a true surprise!  According to the box, each Advent Calendar should contain 20 holiday packs, 1 exclusive evergreen pack, 2 stamped original cards, and 1 original pack.  

Once you take the outer plastic wrapping off, you are greeted with a fold-out Advent Calendar with 24 doors to open.  

My plan is to use the calendar as intended, that is, to only open up one door per day leading up to Christmas!

Here's a better look at today's door (I'll note here that all the doors look exactly the same, other than the number of the day).

And now, the big reveal.  What's behind door #1?  

Yep, our first of 20 holiday packs!

I haven't opened any of the 2025 Topps Holiday cards yet, so this should be a fun rip!  Since this is the first pack, here are the cards in the order they were stacked in the pack.

H11:  Byron Buxton

A nice diving photo of Buxton.  I like the holiday garland wrapping around the standard card design elements in this year's design.  The snowflakes are a nice touch as well.  Definitely a solid card, a nice start to the Advent Calendar.

H59:  Yusei Kikuchi

I think this is the Plaid parallel that is an exclusive design only found in this year's Advent Calendars.  It's a nice enough parallel, but the best part is that it was instantly recognizable as being a parallel.  I'm also a guy who wears a lot of plaid design shirts to work, so this parallel is speaking to me on a couple of different levels.

MNL-10:  Kyle Schwarber

We are 3-for-3 thus far on quality cards.  I'm always a sucker for die-cut cards, and this one is quite nice with the cutout around Santa's hand.  The "Nice List" is also a great name for a holiday-themed set.  Good stuff here, and heck, the Reds are even being linked (however tenuously) to Schwarber, so maybe this is a good omen that Cincinnati will actually spend some cash and attempt to win next year.  I'll also note here that the Making the Nice List set is exclusive to the Advent Calendars.

H63.  Cole Ragans

Well, not every card can be interesting.

H137.  Tmoyuki Sugano

The 2025 Holiday base set contains 200 cards, but knowing Topps, this won't be the end of the parade of rookie cards that we'll eventually find in the Advent Calendar!  

And that does it for door #1 in our Advent Calendar!