Indianapolis Colts 73rd Anniversary 2026 Advent Calendar

The Colts began in Baltimore in 1953 and left it in 1984, in the middle of the night, in a convoy of moving trucks — one of the strangest departures in American sport. Seventy-three seasons covers both halves of that story, and the anniversary count is one of the few things the two cities still share.

Seventy-Three Seasons

The horseshoe has stayed unchanged through all of it, which is unusual — most clubs redraw their marks every decade or so. That continuity is what an anniversary box is really celebrating: not a single season, but the fact that the same emblem has been going out on the field since Eisenhower’s first term.

What You Open

Twenty-four windows outlined with die-cut dotted lines, so each door lifts under a thumbnail without tearing the panel beside it. Behind them, a moulded plastic tray holds an acrylic ornament in every compartment — 3.2 cm square, printed matte on one face and gloss on the other, with a tab punched clean through the material.

The box measures 13.5 x 18 x 3 cm and weighs 135 g. One face of every ornament arrives under a protective film; peeling it is the first job before anything goes on a branch.

Through the Month

Keep it somewhere the household passes daily — a countdown that lives in a spare room gets forgotten by the ninth. As the pieces come out they can go on a branch in a jug, a strip of ribbon, or the tree once it is up. Indoors and dry; acrylic clouds in damp and paper warps near a radiator.

More of the 2026 run in our team collection.

Looking After the Set

A dry cloth handles fingerprints, which acrylic collects the way a window does. Nothing damp and nothing abrasive — both leave a haze you cannot buff out. When December ends, the tray is the right place for the pieces rather than a bag with the rest of the decorations.

Questions Buyers Ask

Why does the count start at 1953?

That was the club’s first season, in Baltimore. The franchise moved to Indianapolis in 1984 and kept the name, the colours and the horseshoe.

Can the doors be shut again?

No — die-cut windows open once. The box lasts one December; the ornaments are what carries over to the next.

How small are the ornaments really?

About the footprint of a large postage stamp. Small enough to run several along one branch, big enough that the artwork still reads across a room.

Is there anything edible inside?

No. Every door hides an acrylic ornament rather than chocolate, which is why the set outlasts the month it was bought for.