Badvent Calenders

Why do advent calenders count to December 25th? My roommate pointed out that they should actually countdown. I feel like this would be more purposeful to see how many days there are until the big man in red comes than to see the date of today. I want to see how many days there are left until all the presents come. Also, I usually get a cardboard advent calender with just little chocolates in them. This year, my mother bought me a big wooden one and put different things in every day. This is much more exciting because I get real chocolate and other cool things like little pictures rather than bad chocolate.