Advent calendar of Christmas treasures 2020
Days 1-5: Winter wonderlands
The origins of the Advent calendar
Today, most people experience Advent through cardboard calendars with 24 doors that hide images, sweets, or other treats, that mark the countdown from 1 December to Christmas Eve. Advent candles are also still used by some households and in places of worship, with a section of the candle burned for every day of Advent.
Like a number of Christmas traditions in the English speaking world, such as festive trees, the origins of these calendars seem to have emerged in 19th-century Germany, where many Protestants would burn a candle for each day of Advent.
Advent calendars as we know them today gained popularity in Germany from around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The most popular origin story today is that in the late 1800s, the mother of a German boy called Gerhardt Lang taped a sweet to a piece of cardboard for each day of advent. As an adult, Lang set up a printing company with a friend called Reichhold and, inspired by his mother’s advent treats, the pair printed the first Advent calendar in 1908. Although their business closed in the 1930s, the modern Advent calendar had caught the public imagination and soon became a new Christmas tradition.
Days 9-13: The nativity
Days 17-21: Christmas creatures
" We wish you all a very Happy Christmas Day full of joy and treasures of your own."