My Advent calendar this year.
Advent is the season in Western Christian churches that precedes Christmas. It's often been noted that religious observances that become part of the majority popular culture lose some of their religious meaning and become secularized. That's certainly happened with Christmas, especially in the U.S., and it's sort of happened to Advent too, although we mostly just call it "December".
The best-known secularized vestige of Advent that remains is the Advent calendar. When I was a little girl, Advent calendars were paper, and usually European (the German ones, like the one pictured here, are still around). The idea is that there's a picture with 24 little doors cut in it, numbered 1-24, and each day from December 1 through Christmas Eve, you open a door and find another little picture behind it. The original intent was to guide children through the religious season, but we've gone pretty far afield, as we'll see.
In traditional calendars, door 24's picture is always the Nativity, but the earlier 23 may show anything -- treats like gingerbread or candy; small animals; little angels; anything that might amuse a child.
When I got a little older, chocolate Advent calendars started to be available, still European in origin. They're basically a very shallow box made of light cardboard, containing a plastic mold with 24 small shapes filled with chocolate, with a door above each piece of chocolate. The picture isn't nearly as pretty, but hey, there's chocolate!
There's a really big gap between those and the Star Wars Lego "Advent calendars" that are the only ones that entertain my nephews. Let's go below the fold and look at some others.
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If you google Advent calendar images today, you'll find that they've taken off in pretty much every direction. There are fancy wooden ones for sale, with little doors or drawers that you can fill anew each year with candies or other small treats. |
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There are fabric and knitted ones, banners with 24 pockets or garlands with 24 small stockings or hats. |
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And there are any number of creative, cute do-it-yourself Advent calendar ideas. |
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So, I'd like to acknowledge a gift, and then I'd like to give you all one. First, many thanks to the wonderful
Sara R for the beautiful
electronic advent calendar she sent me this year! This is an application you install on your computer, and each day it shows you a charming little scene (in an Edwardian mansion staffed by teddy bears!), or gives you an activity like arranging electronic flowers or designing your own snowflakes, which then fall outside. It's definitely a girl thing, but I must say it's extremely soothing, as everything at the electronic mansion is entirely under control, no driving about in the sleet is necessary, and the teddy-bear staff are diligent and have excellent taste.
But here is something that I think all KTKers would like: the Hubble Space Telescope Advent calendar adds a new and lovely deep-space image each day through Christmas. (The first image, shown here, is the Ring Nebula; there's some very interesting text for each image as well.) I've been enjoying them very much so far; I recommend the 1280 px option if your screen can handle it. Thank you, Science!!!
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