24 Videos and Songs Worth a Door: How to Pick Them, Embed Them and Keep the Ads Honest

Some of the best doors in a calendar play for a minute and get opened twice: a voice, a song, a window on a place. This page is for those doors. It lists 24 kinds of video, grouped by who made them, and then the YouTube and Vimeo facts that decide how to set each one up. It’s part of the cluster that starts at what to put in a digital advent calendar, where video doors are one of four kinds in a rhythm of message, memory, thing to do and thing to keep. The list names kinds of video, not titles; choosing the song or the story is your part, and that’s what makes the door yours.

The maker is free, with 24 doors, no account for you or for them, and one link to send; the email address you enter is used once, for the secret edit link.

Before a video goes behind a door

Four quick checks, in the order they fail:

1. Is it a link, not a file? The maker takes a YouTube video as a link; it does not store your video. Your own recording goes on YouTube first.
2. Is it Unlisted, if it is only for them? On YouTube, Unlisted means the video stays off your channel’s Videos tab and out of search, unless someone adds it to a public playlist.
3. Does the owner allow embedding? Google’s help page says a video owner can stop others embedding a video by clearing “Allow embedding” in YouTube Studio. A video that won’t play in a door has usually been set that way.
4. Is it age-restricted? Google says age-restricted videos generally cannot be watched on third-party sites. Open the link in a private window on your phone before you paste it.

Doors 1 to 8: your own recordings

Start here. A recording of you costs nothing, belongs to you, and is the door they’ll watch twice.

1. Good morning, in 20 seconds, filmed where you are. The kitchen, with the window behind you and the day just starting. Upload it as Unlisted and paste the link.
2. A tour of one room, narrated. Thirty seconds of your desk, naming the three things on it and where each came from.
3. You reading a page aloud. A page from a book you think they’d like, with the cover in shot at the start and the page number said out loud.
4. You singing the first verse of their song. Badly is fine. The effort is what they’ll watch for.
5. A how-to that only you know. How you fold a fitted sheet, make your coffee, or tie the scarf they always ask about.
6. The pet doing nothing. Fifteen seconds of the cat on the radiator, no edit, no commentary.
7. One sentence from someone else. A sibling or a friend, ten seconds, filmed by you, with their agreement beforehand.
8. The view from your window at the hour they’ll open the door. Thirty seconds, no talking, the actual light.

Doors 9 to 16: songs and concerts

Songs are the most common video door and the easiest to get wrong. A song video is another person’s work on YouTube, and ads play in it (see below). So the door text carries the personal part: why this song, why today.

9. The song from the year you met. A link to a video of it, with the year and the place in the door text.
10. A song they hum without noticing. Name the moment you first heard them doing it.
11. One song from a live concert. A recorded concert by a band or an orchestra they like; say in the door text which minute to start at, so the door is not a two-hour wait.
12. A choir singing something quiet. Filmed in a church or a hall, for an evening when the day has been long.
13. A street musician’s version of a song they know. The same song in a different arrangement, so it’s a surprise and not a repeat.
14. A song in a language they are learning. Add one line in the door text with what the chorus means, in your own words.
15. An instrumental for working or sleeping. Name the hour: “put this on at 10 p.m. with the phone face down”.
16. A song for the walk. The door text says where to listen: on the way to the station, on the stairs.

Doors 17 to 23: read-alouds, how-tos and places

17. A picture book read aloud by its author or a librarian. Only a video the reader published for the public; on a family calendar, a parent watches beside the child.
18. Part 1 of a story in three doors. A chapter read aloud, ending where the next door begins; doors 20 and 22 carry the next two.
19. A how-to for the weekend. Bread, a paper star, a knot. The door says what to have on the table first.
20. Part 2 of the story. The next chapter, with the same reader, so the voice is already familiar.
21. A science explanation in six minutes. About something they asked you once and you couldn’t answer.
22. Part 3 of the story. The ending, saved for a Sunday.
23. A place, at walking pace. A film of a street in a city they lived in, or one you plan to visit; or a harbor, a fire in a grate, snow on a field, with no talking at all.

Door 24

24. The long video. Two minutes of you, one take, about the year. The last door is the one a calendar is remembered by; door 24 has twelve endings and what to avoid.

The platform’s own words Google’s help page on embedded videos says “there’s no way to directly turn off ads on embedded videos only”. A song video from someone else’s channel can show ads that neither you nor the calendar can switch off.

YouTube and Vimeo: what the pages say

This is the practical part, in the platforms’ own words. None of it is complicated, and all of it is worth knowing before you hit send.

Unlisted is not private. Google’s visibility page says unlisted videos can be seen and shared by anyone with the link, viewers need no Google account, and “link sharing has no restriction on resharing”. All three settings can be reviewed by YouTube for ad suitability, copyright and other abuse prevention. Record what you’d say to the one person.

Ads. Google says embedded videos may show skippable or non-skippable in-stream ads, that they follow the same settings as on youtube.com, and that only YouTube and the video’s owner earn from them. A calendar cannot promise an ad-free video door.

The nocookie player. On sites that embed YouTube, Google’s privacy-enhanced mode, on the youtube-nocookie.com domain, stops views from personalizing the viewer’s YouTube browsing, and ads shown are non-personalized. The same page notes that after the viewer leaves the embed, the website may track behavior under its own policies.

Size and overlays. Google’s required minimum functionality for embedded players says the viewport must be at least 200 by 200 pixels, with 480 by 270 recommended for 16:9, and that no overlays, frames or other elements may sit in front of any part of the player, controls included. A video door is a plain player. It also requires that the embedding site not suppress the HTTP Referer.

“Made for kids.” Google’s page says creators must say whether a video is made for kids. For made-for-kids videos it lists as unavailable, among others, comments, personalized advertising, the miniplayer and “save to playlist”, and says “we don’t serve personalized ads on kids content”. The page does not mention embedded players, so don’t read it as a promise about a video in a door. Google’s embed page adds that a child-directed website or app must self-designate, even when it uses the privacy-enhanced player. On a family calendar the doors are addressed to the parent, who decides what the child watches; see photos of children in an advent calendar for the school rules.

Vimeo’s free tier. Vimeo’s page lists Public and Private as the free privacy levels; Unlisted, password and domain-level embed controls need a paid plan, private videos cannot be embedded anywhere, and the free plan has 1 GB of storage and one seat, with sharing and embedding included. For a surprise video, YouTube Unlisted is the free setting that works.

In the tool A video door in the maker takes a YouTube link, not an upload. Doors 1 to 8 are your own recordings, uploaded to YouTube as Unlisted; doors 9 to 23 are links to public videos, with the personal part in a text line; door 24 is a link to your long video. The calendar goes out as one link by WhatsApp or email, and the edit link in your inbox opens it for changes, for example when a video is taken down.

Put it in a calendar

Eight video doors and sixteen others make a calendar with plenty of voice in it. The template for a partner mixes them; or start empty with Create your calendar, record door 1 on your phone tonight, and paste its link.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I put a video in a digital advent calendar?

Upload it to YouTube, set it to Unlisted, copy the link and paste it into a door. The maker takes YouTube and Vimeo videos as links, not as uploads.

Will a YouTube video in the calendar show ads?

It can. Ads inside an embedded player belong to YouTube and the video’s owner, and Google says they cannot be turned off for embeds alone.

Is an unlisted video private?

No. Google says an unlisted video can be seen and shared by anyone with the link. Keep anything that must stay private out of a video door.

Can I use a private Vimeo video?

Not for free. Vimeo’s page says private videos cannot be embedded anywhere, and Unlisted is a paid setting.

Why does a video not play in the door?

Two reasons are on Google’s pages: the owner may have cleared “Allow embedding”, and age-restricted videos generally cannot be watched on third-party sites.

What makes the nocookie player different?

Google’s page says views in privacy-enhanced mode are not used to personalize the viewer’s YouTube browsing, and the ads are non-personalized.

Can I put a song behind a door?

As a link to a video of it, yes. The door shows the player, the ads belong to the platform, and the song stays on the owner’s channel.

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