Advent Calendars
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Christmas | 25 comments
Advent calendar
When I was a small child someone sent us three Advent Calendars from Germany. One for each child. I can still remember the anticipation as we opened the windows each day and looked at the pictures behind the doors on all three.
These Advent Calendars were deluxe, with a really good image behind each door and loads of detail in the scenes. One has stuck in my mind forever. The door was a window shutter and when I opened it there was a lady smiling down at someone below. I followed her gaze to the man and the little dog standing on the snowy street below. Magical.
No wonder my mother kept them safe. They were packed away after Christmas with the rest of decorations and appeared twelve months later.
I was so young that I couldn’t remember the images behind the doors year to year. So I was thrilled when she opened the large oblong Christmas box, shook off the tinsel and stood the calendars on the mantelpiece.
Eventually I did remember the images but still enjoyed the anticipation of having my annual peek inside each window.
One day I’d love to design an Advent Calendar where the images behind the doors interact with the overall scene.
Crossing the days off to Christmas is fun. I’ve always enjoyed Advent Calendars. An independent journey has always appealed far more than any arrival.
This morning a small, chunky envelope dropped through our letterbox. I opened it carefully. My mum had sent us a card advent calendar. Something about the design had my antenna twitching, it seemed familiar. I turned it over to discover that it was designed and made in Germany by Richard Sellmer Verlag.
I ventured onto the internet. They have been trading since 1946!
We must have received our advent calendars in the late fifties. I’m 98% sure that this style is the same. I studied the calendars each Christmas for about four or five years in a way that only a child could – with few distractions, every square inch was examined carefully and enjoyed.
Fifty years later things may have come full circle.
Update: Yes I have now confirmed that these were the calenders that we had as children. You can buy them direct from the manufacturer in Germany too.
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Hi
by chance I found this blog about Advent Calendars. Thank you for all your comments. I am Frank Sellmer, the owner in third generation of Richard Sellmer Verlag. We indeed are producing these Calendars since 1946 and can say with success. Many people love the traditional style, not filled with Chocolate, just with pictures behind, as in the past. I do my best to add every year at least one re-print Advent from the 50ies or earlier. The archieves is large however many old Calendars are not producable to reasonable costs and we do not go to China to produce them!
Hello Frank
I was thrilled when I saw that you had dropped by to leave a comment on my blog. Your family’s Advent Calendars made a lasting impression on my Christmases as a child. Ours were sent from friends in Germany when I was about four years old. No other families that we knew in England had Advent Calendars as good as the ones manufactured by your family. My Mother recycled these Advent Calendars year after year, they were always a joy. Christmas wouldn’t have been the same without them.
Ever since then I have looked for similar Advent Calendars and drawn a blank until my Mother sent me a small card sized one last Christmas (I’m now 55 so it has been a long search!). I recognised the style immediately. When I opened the windows of the houses, I saw the scenes behind the windows (rather than just a spurious motif) and was delighted.
So now I can say that your Advent Calendars have given me joy for over 50 years. Thank you.
This is my first Xmas in Oz, half a world away from home, and what did my mother send me? A german-produced chocolate-bearing advent calendar. She buys one for each of us kids (myself and my four cousins) every year, even though all but one of us are over 18 now.
We never did the Advent calendar thing as children, I guess it wasn’t part of the tradition in my mum’s family who are not British so we do have occasional “gaps” in the recognised tradional celebrations in this country at our house. But we don’t care! I have been known to provide chocolate filled advent calendars for nephews, nieces and god-children and edible Christmas tree decorations don’t always last until the 25th although we are expert at removing the contents without damaging the foil which then remains hanging in situ. If you like a bit of fun with your Christmas decorations though, you should google “holiday snowglobe”. My Canadian friend sent me the link for this several years ago and I still can’t resist dropping by from time to time for a little shake. It still makes me giggle. It’s worth watching without shaking for a while too as the funniest things happen inside the snowglobe. There are lots of links to the same thing so just click on the first one.
What lovely traditions we all have and it’s so interesting to share them. Thank you for starting this lovely sharing off Fiona. When my children were little I made them each a quilted Christmas tree advent calendar with heart shaped pockets as decorations. They were filled with chocolates,candy canes & little gifts. As there were no numbers they always chose the advent candle on 1st Dec & then burnt it down an inch to the next number each morning. For the rest of advent they would say each morning “which 1 shall I have”. My son who is now 22 still humours me my saying loudly each morning “Now which 1 shall I have”.
I have 2 daughters aged 1 and 4, this year we’re doing ‘advent activities’. Each morning they’ll get to open a card which tells them which festive activity we’ll be doing on that day, it could be making mince pies, paper chains, putting up the tree etc etc I’d like to say we’re doing this instead of having a chocolate advent calendar but my mother won’t co-operate with that idea and sends them for the girls anyway!
Advent calendars are one of my favorite parts of celebrating Christmas. When my sister and I were very little the neighbor ladies all got together and made advent calendars; the design was a square of fabric with a big felt tree in the center, around the edges are pockets with felt ornaments, every day we would take turns pulling a new ornament out of the pocket to hang on the felt tree. A few years later a friend of my mothers from Denmark sent us cloth calendars that had metal rings with candy tied to each one. Every year my Mom would refill the calendars with small candies, lip gloss, etc. A few years ago my Mom made me a felt advent calendar to hang in my home…It is my treat to pull an ornament from the pocket each morning, I fill the other calendar with treats for my husband- he eats his chocolate before breakfast.
Fiona, thanks for sharing your story with us.
Not having any kids in our house ( and the cats find it a bit tricky to open the little flaps) we have adopted a rather strange advent custom instead of calendars.
Years ago I brought a little nativity set of fiqures, about 2 inch high, horrible bright plastic models of 3 kings mary jospeh and baby jesus in a crib.
We set up the mary /joseph and crib at one end of the top of the telly and carefully measure 24 inches away and set the 3 kings in a row behind eachother…. everyday me and my hubby take it in turn to take the last king and place him at the front of the queue until on christmas eve all 3 are the other side of the tv with the happy couple and baby jesus… strange I know but funny how these little christmas traditions mean so much. 😉
How lovely! What a great description. I’ve been trying to resist the £2 cadbury ones in the supermarket, looking for a special wooden one that we can keep for years.
I got this one
http://www.aspenandbrown.com/products/details.asp?id=510
but Mr. P wasn’t keen on the blue so we’ve opted for this more traditional one.
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/magnetic-nativity-advent-calendar/F/keyword/advent/product/40908
I hope it creates the kind of magic for Miss P. that you describe.
Congratulations for the beautiful gift. How wonderful! I remember advent calendars from when I was young, and did love them so. I rarely see them nowadays. They seem to be all but gone in the States. What a lovely gift! Thanks for the post.
We made our own, and it has pockets, so you can put what you want to … it could be chocolate, or Bible verses, or inspirational poetry, or pictures or treasures …. they are fabric and have been going for some years, now.
Maybe when we fish them out this year, I’ll take a picture!
Still loving the blog by the way, I check out every new post with glee!