Detroit Lions 96th Anniversary 2026 Advent Calendar

The Lions began in 1930 as the Portsmouth Spartans, in a town of forty thousand people in southern Ohio, and moved to Detroit four years later. The first thing the new owners did was schedule a game on Thanksgiving Day and talk a radio network into carrying it. Ninety-odd years on, that afternoon still belongs to them.

Ninety-Six Seasons

A countdown calendar and a Thanksgiving tradition sit closer together than they look: both are about a date on the calendar that a household organises itself around. Marking the ninety-sixth season with something opened daily through December has a certain logic to it for a club whose main contribution to American ritual is a fixture nobody has to look up.

What Comes in the Box

A paper outer box, 13.5 x 18 x 3 cm, 135 g, with twenty-four acrylic ornaments held in a moulded plastic tray. Every window is die-cut so the doors lift one at a time under a thumbnail, and every ornament is 3.2 cm square with a tab punched through the acrylic.

Both faces of each piece are printed, one matte and one gloss, with a protective film over one side that needs peeling first. Skip that step and the piece looks dull on the branch for no reason.

The Printed Name

Enter a name at checkout and it goes into the front artwork at production. It turns a team item into a specific person’s calendar, which is the whole argument for personalisation on something opened twenty-four mornings in a row.

Where It Goes

Kitchen shelf, hall table, the end of a bookcase — somewhere it gets seen rather than somewhere ceremonial. Indoors only. Acrylic hazes in damp and paper warps near heat, and neither comes back.

More of the 2026 run in our team collection.

Questions Buyers Ask

Where does the 96 come from?

The 1930 season, when the club played its first year as the Portsmouth Spartans before relocating to Detroit in 1934.

Can the ornaments go on an outdoor wreath?

No. They are indoor pieces — rain and frost cloud acrylic permanently and the printed faces suffer first.

Are the twenty-four designs all different?

They share a palette and a theme so the set reads as one collection, with the shapes varying across the twenty-four rather than repeating one image.

What if a tab tears?

Unlikely — the tab is punched through the acrylic itself rather than glued on, so there is no join to fail. Hold the piece by the tab when hanging and it will not be under stress.