The History of Advent Calendars

 by Siha Hoque

As Christmas approaches, many buy advent calendars in anticipation of the day itself, each day marked with a small numbered door to open having a small prize within. Usually, the calendars that we have today are decorated with themed designs that vary from movies to football, and the daily segment contains a small toy or piece of chocolate. However, advent calendars originated centuries ago and have developed much more since then. 

Advent calendars were first used in the early 1800s by protestants in Germany - which is also where several other Christmas traditions emerged: such as decorating trees and Christmas fairs or markets. These calendars were made to record the days of advent - the days before Nativity and therefore the preparation prior to that. The direct translation of advent from Latin is ‘coming’ (advent is derived from ‘adventus’). 

The first advent calendars didn't look anything like the brightly designed ones we have today - which are usually aimed at young children. The tradition starts as marking each day of advent by drawing a line with chalk on a wall, or by lighting a daily candle - making keeping track of the days leading up to Christmas an easy practice for churches and households. Then, in the middle stages of the nineteenth century, people began hanging a religious painting or image daily. This resulted in another change: the advent calendar became a handmade board with an image for each day. These became available for many more people in the 1900s where they were printed and sold.

Then in 1920, a man called Gerhard Lang produced an advent calendar with small flaps in front of the images - which started to interest younger audiences as well with the surprise, and some calendars contained a Biblical verse behind each flap. The majority of these images depicted people in the snow, Christmas carolling, children baking gingerbread and people decorating trees. These calendars were typically made of cardboard, so when the war began and this material was strictly rationed the production of advent calendars significantly dropped. Additionally, Germany was under nazi control and there was a ban on printing images onto the calendars during Hitler’s attempts to redefine religious celebrations. 

However, after the end of the second world war, Richard Sellmar of Stuttgart began selling them again with his company Sellmar-Verlag and they became widely available. Today most calendars have pieces of chocolate placed behind each door, and this began in the 1950s. Advent calendars are a popular tradition all over the world now, and have undergone many changes over the years since their first appearances in the early nineteenth century.