Advent Calendars - Pt 4 Hand Crafted

This is the last Advent calendar post for the season and is a great example of the hand crafted type. I bought this in Kaposvár, Hungary in a little shop that was selling all kinds of hand crafted Christmas goodies. It's made like a patch-work quilt and hangs on the wall, and instead of little doors that open it has 24 small bags in which you can place treats. It's a terrific holiday decoration and we love it! Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Advent Calendars - Pt 3 Chocolate Treats

Probably among the most popular of Advent calendars are the chocolate treat ones. They're essentially a plastic tray with 24 pockets filled with small chocolates and an overlay of cardboard. The cardboard overlay has doors in it which open to reveal the chocolates and generally costs about $1. Right now, because we're so close to Christmas, they're selling at highly discounted prices, which is great if you collect these or just want some chocolate on the cheap :-)  We still buy these every year for ourselves just for the fun of it and to keep a little tradition alive. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Advent Calendars - Pt 2

Yesterday we talked a little bit about the history of Advent calendars and the various types and showed you an example of a Gingerbread House style calendar. Today's offering are simple flats made of one piece of nicely decorated cardboard having flaps or 'doors' cut into it. It then gets glued to another piece where various pictures are printed in such a way that when a 'door' is opened it reveals the picture. None of these are very large, in fact they all just fit on a scanner platen but I like them becuase they can be used as backgrounds for villages or Christmas displays. These too, like the Gingerbread house calendar, are all from Germany dating back to the 1980s. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Advent Calendars - Pt 1

Christmas is just a few days away and - as usual - we're a little bit unprepared. Why is it a day that comes every year at the same time always seems to sneak up on us?? LOL Oh well, that's human nature I guess - putting things off  'til the last minute. 

Advent calenders got their start with German Lutherans in the 19th and 20th centuries as a way to mark down the days in anticipation of the coming of Christmas, what we know as the Season of Advent. While technically the Advent season starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, potentially changing the number of waiting days each year, typical Advent calendars simply have 24 positions meaning they start on December 1st. Some calendars are made so as to accomodate all the days of Advent but I haven't seen one yet.

Growing up in Milwaukee in the '50s and '60s I do not recall ever seeing an Advent calendar, neither in church nor in anyone's house, or in the stores. I saw my first one while stationed in Germany and was immediately captivated by them. Most of those on sale were made of a light-weight cardboard. Sometimes the calendar was made to look like a house, other times it was flat, and other times had little chocolate treats behind the doors. Speaking of which, all of the cardboard calendars I've seen personally had little doors in them which open up to reveal a verse, a little picture, or the chocolate. We'll feature various cardboard calendars over the next couple of days.

For you crafter's out there, these things are a  crafter's delight: all you need to do is figure out a clever way to count down from 1-to-24 and you've got yourself a calendar. We'll look at a crafted calendar as well in the upcoming days. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

German Ginger Bread Style Calendars

This was assembled back in the '80s and we still have it plus I have one or two more that have never been assembled yet. The walls are 6 3/4" (17.1cm) W x 5 1/8" (13cm) D x 9 1/2" (24.1cm) H. The roof is 7 7/8" (20) W x 5 1/8" (13cm) H

A sampling of pictures seen behind the doors