A short history of advent calendars

Like many modern-day Christmas traditions, advent calendars have their roots in Germany. Christians have observed the winter days of Advent – the season of waiting and preparation before the arrival of Christ – for centuries with fasting and music, marking the passing of the days in chalk lines or by lighting candles. A children’s book published in Germany in 1851 by the social activist Elise Averdieck describes a more familiar kind of advent calendar, counting down the days until Christmas Eve:

“Every evening when the little girl Elisabeth goes to bed, her mother tells her a bit about the origin of Christmas. Afterwards, they sing a lot of Christmas carols together and hang a new picture about Christmas on the wall. They do this until 24 pictures hang on the wall, and then the children know that Christmas is here.”

Commercially printed advent calendars became popular in Germany and in turn across Europe during the early part of the twentieth century. After the second world war, advent calendars – or julekalender - with small, gift-wrapped presents slowly began to become the norm in Denmark.

Typically they were filled with small gifts of toys or sweets, with a bigger present for Christmas Eve, and would have been a new trend for my aunt Dorte when she was growing up. Her grandmother was good at sewing and made a calendar for Dorte’s father, which she then inherited. This became the inspiration for the julekalender that she designed for her boyfriend’s extended family in the 1970s – and on which Dohur’s own calendar is modelled.