Advent Calenders

[Elisabeth]

As where I live in Europe today everybody seems to go crazy to get hold of one of the last ones available and one very Significant Person in my life sent me two by mail who just arrived today, I was wondering does anyone one here too have an advent calender? Or even like them? If you have, what kind of? Self-made or bought? What's in them? Chocolate, little gifts?

 

Also, as I know there are different concepts of and traditions around these calenders in different countries, would anybody want to share theirs?

 

My two ones are basically little boxes filled with tea varieties in different flavour and kinds (i.e. black tea, green tea, roiboos tea, white tea etc.), one for each day from 1st-24th of December (in Germany they have the big celebration on Christmas Eve). And they were given to be because the Significant Person knows how much I love tea.

[K.C.]

_{We got ours when our daughter was about 2 years old. It is a silver silk scroll with a snowman family on it. There are 25 little silver pouches sewed to the front for placing a small candy or item, tied up with silver ribbons. When she was little we would fill it with treats now she just likes to untie the ribbons and place a candycane inside that we move along the dates. 10 years later and she still gets excited when it gets hung up each year}

[Contest4jen]

I LOVE advent calanders, I've had one every year for as long as I can remember, they are always the store bought chocolate ones though! Only 2 days and I can dig into this years!

[Elisabeth]

@KC Grim: That's lovely. I think I would have loved to do what your daughter does with the cane when I was her age. You know it's not that "baby thing" anymore but with a tradition like this you still don't have to let go entirely of what make's you the house's own little girl..., Giving it a sencond thought I know I would have loved this. I will keep this in mind in case my niece will complain about the "baby chocolate calender" this year.

 

@contest4jen: Yeah, most years I had those chocolate ones, too so far. I'd have expected this years' to be like that too, but the tea calenders are a real surprise. When I was living in a different part of the country I was part of a huge English language community and I remember that back in 2006 I had chocolate filled calenders from about every English speaking country that was part of that community (I was teaching at an International School then). That was absolutely thrilling for me, because the chocolate tastes different everywhere.

[Nephylim]

We have always had at least two advent callenders. Last year when my daughter and her partner was with me we had four... and yes, I do have to have my own They are the basic chocolate ones but I have always liked the idea of the permanent ones. Maybe next year

[Former Member]

Me and my siblings used to have them when we were younger. The little pieces of chocolate we had every morning before we set off for school. Not thought about that for years. It's funny what slips your mind as you get older.

[Elisabeth]

Thanks to you too, Nephylim and Mike00, for your answers.

 

Nephylim, it's never to late And if you should feel you want to switch back to chocolate then you can always fill the permanent ones with that.

 

Mike00, that's exactly as how it was with my brother as a kid.

[Renee Stevens]

When I was growing up, we had one at my grandma's house, but it was more of a "permanent" one. It was made of felt and had little pockets at the bottom and a felt christmas tree at the top. In the pockets were little items. Some were little felt cutouts, like a present, and others were little mini ornaments, like a nutcracker. Each day, one of them got pinned onto the Christmas tree. The last one, that you put up on the 24th was a little sleigh and reindeer. Me and my brothers and cousins always argued about whose turn it was to pin that day's item up on the calendar. In fact, now that I think about it, I think my grandma still uses it, but since we're all grown up and none of us live close to her, she pins all of them up unless one of us makes a day trip down there. After looking, I found one on Amazon that is fairly similar.

 

[sorgbarn]

Your calendar with different sorts of teas sounds wonderful.

 

I had a calendar my grandmother made for me when I was little, and my mother wrapped little gifts for it each year. My oldest daughter got one made by my aunt when we had a celebration for her when she was a baby. And until my third child was two I made gifts for them to hang in their calendars every year, but the last three years we have settled for store bought chocolate calendars. 3x24 gifts just wasn´t manageable anymore. Instead we changed the tradition with a gift calendar to advent gifts. So now they each receive a little gift every advent Sunday before Christmas. The gifts all hang on one of the old homemade calendars, and the 'soon to be five year old is especially expectant, asking if I know what´s inside and so on.

 

Christmas is a lot about traditions and expectations, whether your a grown up or a child.

[Daniel89]

We had that christmas tree with ornaments calendar, but it was home made. My mum made it for when my big sister started understanding stuff like christmas so it survived 4 children and lasted 25 years! This year my dad gave us all this money calendar, each one has the opportunity to win 750 000, so first prize wouldn't be so bad!

[Elisabeth]

Renee, that sounds like a wonderful thing to do with the ornaments and the tree. I imagine as a kid you can get really exited about that.

 

sorgbarn, I'd so much agree about the traditions and expectations no matter what age one is. We didn't particularly have any when I was a kid (well, ecxept from "Get done with it!" because my father didn't like Holidays) but from early adulthood on I've sort of made up my own traditions, borrowing things I'd seen friends do here and there. For example normally I bake a lot during December (well, this year not because I won't have the time), and do all kinds of paper crafts if I can manage to have my god-children around. My tea advent calenders, by the way, have mint and berry and thank you herbal tea (whatever that is supposed to mean) for today. I haven't had either of these before (mint and berry I did but from an other brand), so I'm really ecxited what they'll be like.

 

Daniel, well that old calender certainly went through a lot. That money calender seems a bit strange to me personally, but I honestly imagine that it might be fun among the siblings

[Daniel89]

The money calendar works like this: Every day has a symbol and if you get 3 matching symbols you win money. It is store bought and it's made by the same company that makes these lottery tickets that you scrape away this cover and if you get three matching sums you win that sum.

I got a parcel today, so if I get two more parcels I can win 750,- but of course everyone wants the grand prize, but there are only two calendars with that prize, so it's not likely.

[Elisabeth]

Ah, now I see, Daniel. I didn't get it at first. They're called lottery calendars over here. Well, they still strike me as strange because in most cases all you get out of them is the thrill from hoping you might win while the actual winner is the lottery company, still I think it works just fine for some people. Especially if this kind of calender is shared among several people because that adds another thrill to it as everybody is probably hoping that they will be lucky. What would you do with the money, if you would win? Share it with your family?

[Daniel89]

I think I would save it for later, I want my own place and I want to go to university, and those things cost money

[clumber]

I remember advent calendars... When I was little I always used to have one with chocolate in it.

 

(And the chocolate was always that odd, brown cardboard you get pretending to be chocolate at christmas but you end up liking it anyway )

 

 

Martin

[John Doe]

Ah a white people thing.... I didn't know what an advent calender was... had to look it up to be certain... (wikipedia!) My family is too Asian for stuff like that though we are Christians and celebrate Christmas.... nothing of that sort in our house though. No santa either. I finally convinced my parents to decorate the outside of the house with lights and such a two years ago barely. This year I'm introduing the pleasure of holiday baking! Cookies and cookies and chocolate stuff galore. My dad still says its too much unnecessary work and white folks are crazy for doing such things (as a joke of course).

 

Holiday tradition for us is the tree, presents under the tree, and then Christmas Eve and Christmas hang out with the family. And I mean FAMILY. The cousins, aunts, uncles, grands, all come over to one person's house and the 40 plus of us all cram together in the house and hang out. We have piles and piles of food, from turkey, ham, fried spring rolls, fresh spring rolls, fried rice, mashed/smashed potato, sushi, bulgogi, noddle stuffed wings, cassaroles (green bean and amoung others), cornbread, fried chicken, etc.

 

But no Advent calender, or money calender, or lottery calender, or any other type of calender...

[John Doe]

Though the reason of practice of Advent Calender makes sense... it seemed to have strayed from original intent some... probably explains why my parents didn't pick it up as tradition...

[sorgbarn]

Renee, that sounds like a wonderful thing to do with the ornaments and the tree. I imagine as a kid you can get really exited about that.

 

sorgbarn, I'd so much agree about the traditions and expectations no matter what age one is. We didn't particularly have any when I was a kid (well, ecxept from "Get done with it!" because my father didn't like Holidays) but from early adulthood on I've sort of made up my own traditions, borrowing things I'd seen friends do here and there. For example normally I bake a lot during December (well, this year not because I won't have the time), and do all kinds of paper crafts if I can manage to have my god-children around. My tea advent calenders, by the way, have mint and berry and thank you herbal tea (whatever that is supposed to mean) for today. I haven't had either of these before (mint and berry I did but from an other brand), so I'm really ecxited what they'll be like.

 

Daniel, well that old calender certainly went through a lot. That money calender seems a bit strange to me personally, but I honestly imagine that it might be fun among the siblings

 

That tea calendar of yours actually makes me feel a little bit envious. I wonder if I can make some hints about it here in my house, for next year maybe. It really is a brilliant idea, and you could use it with other items/things as well.

 

I also like the idea of making up your own traditions. It´s almost necessary if/when you meet someone you want to share your life with. They come with their set of traditions and you have yours. We bake too, saffron buns for Lucia (December 13th), gingerbread and different sorts of Christmas candy, depending on as you say how much time we have. An other thing we do, closer to the 24th is we stay up late one evening (because the children must be asleep) and put together rhyming verses (not sure what English word to use here) for the Christmas gifts. It´s a lot of fun. And everyone wants verses with their gifts. It´s become a new tradition here.

[Elisabeth]

Daniel, that seems a good idea indeed

 

clumber, that's right. At first one thinks "urgh!" but thenm one eats it nonetheless. Though I must confess that there are certain brands of chocolate I wouldn't eat if I was paid to.

 

JohnDoe, that's really interesting. Thanks for sharing. Most Christian and even atheist (that is due to the commercial aspect) people in Europe are handling it just like you say you would, I guess. If you haven't heard about the calenders where you live then it is probably an altogether Western thing. I have a faint recollection about once having seen a documentary that said it originated in Middle Europe, but I don't know how true that is or if my memory is correct about it. I remember, by the way, that in Romania, at least in my childhood when Ceausecu was still there, they didn't seem to do the decorating either. Either there was none at all or not to the extent it is done elsewhere. But I need to rely on what relatives tell me about that, because we never went there as long as Ceausescu was alive

 

sorgbarn, I think what you mean must be a kind of carol (though not sung). I do them for my hearing friends sometimes and write them onto the tags that go with their gifts. My deaf friends don't care for them, though they're lovely in sign language. My tea calenders were sold the way they are in specialised shops. So maybe if you are just on the lookout enough you might find similar ones in Sweden (might be a good hint to some of your loved ones for next year). For today there a two diffrent herbal teas. The one I had so far was too bitter for my taste, I'll have the other one in the evening.