Woman’s custom claw machine advent calendar for her fiancé is straight out of the elves' workshop

Holidays hold a special place in our hearts as we eagerly await Christmas presents from our loved ones. The centuries-old tradition of gifting is a way to make those we care about feel special during the festive season. A woman, trying to do just that for her partner, went the extra mile by creating a custom advent calendar inspired by the design of a claw machine. California resident Vivian Huynh—who goes by @viviank.h on Instagram—crafted this unique gift for her fiancé, which many described as something “straight out of the elves’ workshop.”

In a widely circulating video, Huynh shared a tutorial on how she brought her unique idea of a customized claw machine to life. Inspired by the design of a typical arcade game, the special calendar used to count down the days until Christmas was made from cardboard, bright red gift paper and fillable prize balls. The DIY Christmas toy crane functioned like any other claw game, with a ribbon-attached magnet on top aimed at grabbing the gift balls inside. “Not sure how I’m going to top this advent calendar next year,” read the caption of the one-and-a-half-minute video, hinting at the challenge of meeting the high standards set by Huynh.

The content creator explained that she has been making custom advent calendars for her fiancé every Christmas since they met. “This custom claw machine is definitely the coolest one I’ve made so far,” she claimed. “I spent so many nights staying up trying to figure out how to make this. I am not an engineer, so I had to try to make this as simple as possible,” Huynh told her 25k followers. The footage began with Huynh measuring and cutting out the window and the slot for the gift. Each side also got a one-inch-wide opening for the dowel, which made the machine functional.

Following this, Huynh wrapped the entire structure of the customized toy crane with candy cane wrapping paper. She was then seen measuring the height of a small box where the gift would drop. After cutting it out of cardboard, she placed it in the middle of the box and wrapped and taped it securely. Next, she revealed the one-inch diameter dowel she found at a local Canadian tire hardware store. Huynh’s experiment was successful after she carefully placed a ribbon with a fishing magnet in the middle of the dowel and completed the remaining steps. To add a personal touch, she used her silhouette to cut out letters spelling, “Fouad’s Christmas Countdown.”

“I wanted it to feel like an arcade game, so I printed out the tickets with numbers on them, and then each ticket was going to correspond with one of the wrapped gifts,” she proudly shared. Huynh also added her fiancé’s favorite chocolates to the balls before labeling them to correspond with the gifts. “I really wanted to make it look like the prize center at an arcade where you can redeem your tickets. I was super happy with it, and my fiancé was blown away,” the video creator added. Her partner, amused by the find, used the DIY claw machine, and the first gift was another custom advent calendar. This time, Huynh filled it with tea bags from a local tea shop. The footage received 132,000 likes. Several people lauded the woman for her creative skills in the comments section of the video. "Not an engineer, and yet she whips out this beauty; girl power, yay!!!" @betterforsea said. "Lol, the first gift turned out to be another advent calendar," @scrapsandink remarked. @thecourtneyallen joked, "There’s women like this in the world. I’m so happy my man settled for me."

You can follow Vivian Huynh (@viviank.h) on Instagram for more wholesome and cooking content.