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Advent calendars, explained: Where they came from and why they're everywhere now

Advent calendar options have begun growing in variety and creativity.

Elva Etienne/Getty Images

The winter holidays may be approaching, but Advent calendar season is already in full swing.

For decades, many Americans have celebrated the 24 days until Christmas with the classic countdown calendars, opening little doors or drawers to reveal a small treat — traditionally a Bible verse, a toy or a piece of chocolate.

But companies are getting increasingly creative, meaning there's a much wider variety of Advent goodies to choose from these days.

Wine, makeup, jam, beef jerky, jewelry, pet treats, socks, skin care, hot sauce, candles, tea bags, hair products, gemstones, toys, cheese, chocolate and coffee are just some of this year's possibilities.

There are plenty of virtual calendars that offer new riddles, games and songs each day. And you can even create your own online calendar with pictures, videos and messages.

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Some brands have also started offering "Hanukkah calendars," with one treat — including chocolates, nail polish, cat toys and hair products — for each of the holiday's eight nights.

Brands are also releasing calendars — and selling out of them — farther and farther ahead of December.

Aldi drops its highly anticipated Advent calendars on Nov. 1, and sends only one shipment to each store — meaning supplies don't last long. Anthropologie's senior product and packaging manager told Modern Retail last year that its calendar has sold out faster every year since it first hit shelves in 2018.

"They're just everywhere," Marcia Mogelonsky, the director of insight, food and drink and market research firm Mintel, told Morning Edition in 2022. "Everything's an Advent calendar now."

Here's a look at how we got here.

The calendars have their religious roots in Germany

First things first: The season of Advent dates back to the fourth century, and is celebrated by most Christian churches in the Western tradition. The four-week period begins on the Sunday closest to the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle (Nov. 30) and lasts for the next three Sundays.

Scholars believe that the period was originally a season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January Feast of Epiphany. Advent — which comes from the Latin word for "arrival" — gradually became associated with the coming of Christ, and by the Middle Ages was explicitly linked to Christmas.

History

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Americans Didn't Always Celebrate Christmas The Way We Do Today

Americans Didn't Always Celebrate Christmas The Way We Do Today

Today, most Advent calendars don't technically cover the Advent season, but instead start on Dec. 1 and run through either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. The reason is practical, as Vox explains: The length of the Advent season changes from year to year, so it's easier to pick a set number of days for calendars that can be reproduced or reused every season.

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Advent calendars have their roots in the 19th century, when German Protestants started taking creative steps to mark the days leading up to Christmas, like ticking off chalk marks on walls or doors, lighting candles and placing straws in a Nativity crib.

Some families hung up a devotional image each day, which led to the creation of the first known handmade, wooden Advent calendar in 1851 and other early "Christmas clocks" and "Christmas candles" in the following years.

A visitor looks at an Advent calendar from 1966 of the former East Germany at a 2008 museum exhibit in Leipzig. Eckehard Schulz/AP hide caption

A visitor looks at an Advent calendar from 1966 of the former East Germany at a 2008 museum exhibit in Leipzig.

They made their way to the U.S. after World War II

German publisher Gerhard Lang is credited as the inventor of the printed Advent calendar, which was inspired by the childhood memory of his mom sewing 24 cookies into the lid of a box and allowing him to eat one each day of Advent.

Lang produced the first printed and commercial Advent calendar in the early 1900s — in partnership with illustrator Ernst Kepler — and continued to innovate over the years, including creating the first calendars with doors in the 1920s.

Other publishers followed suit, and by the 1930s Advent calendars were in high demand in Germany.

However, things took a dark turn during World War II, when paper was rationed and the Nazi Party banned the printing of illustrated calendars. As part of its effort to rebrand Christmas, the Third Reich later created its own Advent calendar — incorporating swastikas and other symbols, Vox reports — to be distributed to mothers and children.

At the end of the war, longing for normalcy, companies with the means returned to printing traditional Christmas Advent calendars — and returning service members brought them back to Europe and the U.S.

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President Dwight Eisenhower gave them a huge popularity boost at home when national newspapers ran a photograph of him opening one with his grandchildren in 1953. Still, the Advent calendar needed a few more years and iterations to reach its final form (or at least the version that we know today).

The first chocolate-filled Advent calendars reportedly appeared on the scene in the 1950s, and Cadbury began commercially producing them in 1971. It took two more decades before they were popular enough for the company to put into continuous production — and the rest is history.

Customers form a line around the block at 8 a.m. for the launch of the 2017 Liberty London Beauty Advent Calendar in London in October 2017. Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images hide caption

Customers form a line around the block at 8 a.m. for the launch of the 2017 Liberty London Beauty Advent Calendar in London in October 2017.

Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images

They're increasingly popular with retailers and shoppers

Retailers of all kinds, from supermarkets to department stores, have been producing and selling more Advent calendars in recent years.

U.K. department store Selfridges & Co. offered a whopping 128 Advent calendars in 2022, more than double the previous year's offerings, Reuters reported at the time. Stateside, Saks Fifth Avenue sold 18 types of calendars (with prices ranging from $65 to $3,500), up six from the year before.

And while advent calendars come in different styles and sizes these days, Mogelonsky told Morning Edition that they still accomplish some of the same things they set out to do centuries ago.

"We all need the gift of time. And this is a way of slowing us down," she says. "So it kind of prolongs the experience, as the original Advent calendar concept was when it was developed in the late 19th century as a way of marking the days 'til Christmas."

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Plus, as NPR has reported, modern-day Advent calendars can be displayed all month, enjoyed with family and shared on social media.

And they're a great way for companies to get samples to customers, especially those who might go on to purchase more of their products down the road.

Mogelonsky noted that's especially important — and challenging — these days, with inflation high and recession fears looming.

"It's especially difficult to sell new products when the economy is not the best in the world, because you are reluctant to spend a big amount of money on something you might not like," she explains.

By bundling products together, retailers are subtly encouraging shoppers to spend more than they might otherwise. And brands are hoping people will go out and buy more — or full-size versions — of what they liked, even after the holiday season is over.

Take Bean Box, a Seattle-based coffee subscription company that secured a retail deal with Walmart after selling out of all 10,000 of its Advent calendars in 2021, according to business magazine Inc.com. It doubled its supply of Advent calendars the following holiday season.

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Advent calendars don't just have to be for Christmas, Mogelonsky said, so consider stocking up now for countdowns to future birthdays, graduations or other special occasions.

"Instead of one big gift, draw it out," she adds. "Slow time down a bit by counting the days 'til this happens."

Practice Spotlight: Yule Calendar – There is still time to enjoy this practice this year! [Stardust, Contemplating]

One of the many reasons I love our Pagan community and Path is because they’re fun. Because we affirm the value of enjoyment, and don’t attach guilt to having fun, we can let loose and enjoy a party, a gathering, a practice, and so on. Here is a holiday practice which is fun and adds so much to our lives.
Which practice is this? The Yule Calendar! Also known as an Advent Calendar, it helps us experience the building excitement leading up to the Winter Solstice, just as Pagans have done for at least dozens of thousands of years (maybe hundreds of thousands of years!). It fits well with both families and solitary Pagans, takes only a little preparation, and rewards us every day.

Little Paper Doors?

A Pagan Yule calendar has brightened my Winter Solstice season for nearly 20 years. The basic concept is familiar to many of us who grew up with Christmas Advent Calendars (see the surprising history* below). As a child, my family had a simple Advent calendar – just a paper calendar with little cut out doors, which open to show a little picture – maybe of a snowman, a decorated tree, a stocking, etc. Each evening in December, my sisters and I would ask to be the one allowed to open a door, which we’d do with excitement. Looking back, it’s a little funny to think that a simple little paper door with nothing behind it other than a poorly printed, simple picture would command such attention and excitement – but it did. This is yet another example of the power of holiday practices to fill our lives with joy and especially to teach both kids (and adults) what they value in life.

We can make my little paper Advent Calendar practice even better, in many ways. In my family, we’ve used an Advent Calendar with little doors to count down the days to the Winter Solstice with the kids for about 20 years. We took a regular Advent Calendar (here it is on the right), and instead of using the numbers as dates (opening door #3 on December 3rd), we used them as days until Solstice (hence starting at door 24, on November 28th, and working from the bottom of the tree to the top). This feels completely natural, and the kids wouldn’t think it was meant to be used any other way. I’m a little surprised that even after so many years of use, all of the doors are working, not broken off and lost, etc.! Behind each door is a surprise – either a note with a Solstice related wonder of our Universe (such as the Geminid meteor shower, or a solar flare), or candy, money, or a hint to be used on Solstice morning (you can print out these notes for your own use, here). We’ve found that we can make this all so much more meaningful than the Advent calendars I had as a kid, because we are celebrating the real return of the real Sun, and can share that with the kids again and again (children don’t often learn by experiencing something just once – it often takes many repetitions over the years). Here are more details to all our family Winter Solstice celebrations.

Even Better!

Now I see that many more Advent Calendars are available, making it easy for you to start this as a Pagan tradition yourself. In the Nordic countries, Advent calendars are already called “Yule Calendars” (Jule kalender). For families, this can be a great way to light up a child’s life, show her or him the Universe, and teach the wonder and joy of our Pagan Spirituality. Similarly, for those with no kids around, this is a power way to connect with our Ancestors who viscerally felt the loss of the Sun and anticipated it’s return. You can put Pagan devotions in each door, or otherwise take a moment to start the day with purpose and with the feelings of the coming light of Solstice morning. In both of those cases, it helps to have a calendar ready made. Here are several options.

Make your own! Here is one example.

Yule Advent Calendar Packets

These kits with small cloth bags for each day are especially versatile, and can easily be used for a Yule Calendar. One could count down as I do (starting with bag #24 on November 28th) or use the date in December (starting on December 1 with bag #1 and counting up to the Winter Solstice on December 21st this year – and simply not using a few of the bags like bag #23). One could put a special marker on the Winter Solstice bag, such as this beautiful Atheopagan pendant. At $13, these bags are inexpensive and can be used year after year. Plus, these look better than the little wooden door unit we are currently using, because (in addition to the versatility), their is more room in the bags than in our doors. With 4 kids (and two parents), if we put small candies (such as a Hershey’s kiss), we find that we can’t fit all six in a door. One might be concerned about needing to plan out and fill all bags ahead of time, but we very often fill a door the day before (or hours, minutes!), and it seems it would be easy to crumple up some paper in each bag to make it look full ahead of time. Some additional designs are here and here.

One could look to do doors just as we do, and that works well too. There are lots of designs with doors, and for those you can’t really toss away a few doors (to use the date method), so you’ll have to count down starting around November 28th. Here are a printable Winter Solstice Advent calendar for just $5.

Moon Phase Advent Wreath

Another meaningful tradition is the use of an Advent Wreath. A wreath is, of course, a very natural item, with a long history dating back well before Christianity. The idea of lighting four candles on a wreath to anticipate the Christmas is quite new (see the history below), and of course, it’s a human invention just like any other religious practice. So it makes sense to use it in a Naturalistic Pagan practice if it works well without harm. It seems like it does – one way could be to light the four candles in order in the time leading up to the Winter Solstice to again anticipate the coming return of the Sun and emphasize its importance in our lives. Advent wreaths are very common to find for sale, and are almost always consistent with Naturalistic Paganism. But why four candles instead of three, six, or whatever? Of course it’s easy to find sacred reasons for any number under about 15, but four is especially sacred to Pagans, being the number of elements, moon phases, seasons, quarter holidays, and so on. In fact, some Christian denominations use numbers other than 4, such as the Greek Orthodox church which uses an Advent Wreath with six candles.

Since four is already so perfect for Pagans, it’s easy to get an Advent Wreath with 4 candles. While many churches use the four Sundays before Christmas, perhaps a better marker for us would be the dates of the four primary Moon phases before the Winter Solstice? If so, here are the dates for 2021 (see table below)!

On a practical level, if a family is only free one night of the week due to work, or such, then maybe use every Wednesday before Solstice, or whatever works. If using the Moon phases, then altar tiles (check out these!) of the four quarter phases (new, 1st quarter, full, last quarter) could be temporarily used from the full set. Some Advent wreaths are here, here, and here (this one has a center candle for Solstice Day). Note that most of these require the candles to be purchased separately – which is good because that allows you to pick the colors to fit your personal approach to the Winter Solstice celebrations. For me, they would be metallic candles, representing the metals made by dying supernova stars.

Some History

The use of evergreens to celebrate the Winter Solstice dates back at least thousands of years, and the use of wreaths in particular for spiritual significance goes back at least 2,500 years with the Etruscan civilization. With those old ages for these Pagan practices, and that relatively old practice of the Advent in Christianity, I was surprised to find that many of these specific Advent practices in the US and Europe are relatively new inventions. For instance, the Advent Wreath wasn’t widely used in America until the 1930s, within my dad’s lifetime (he’s alive today). I guess when we see something as a child, we tend to think it has “always been that way”. Similarly, I can’t know about others who grew up Christian, but for me, as a child Advent was not focused on the idea of the 2nd coming of Jesus to end the world – but apparently the impending apocalypse and destruction of the world was indeed much of the focus of Advent for most of Christian history.

Celebrations

However you celebrate, I hope your Solstice season is filled with joy, love and meaning. As with nearly every practice in Naturalistic Paganism (and any naturalistic spirituality), what matters is what works – so if it doesn’t work in your situation, do something else. If it speaks to you, go for it! I know this post seems early, but with shipping times (and the current supply chain issues), if one is going to order any of these items and make this year the first one to use a Solstice Advent Practice, one may have to order very soon. The first doors, and the first candle (if going by Moon phase) are just a few days after Thanksgiving.

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