History of the Advent Calendar

Advent Calendar

There is nothing better than counting down the days till Christmas with your Advent calendar.

I have happy memories of doing just that with mine as a child. Excitedly opening the window to see what lay behind it, and what shaped chocolate I would receive that day. Today there are many varieties of the Advent calendars, including chocolate ones, and most recently Toy or Jewellery Advent calendars.

How did the Advent Calendar come to be? Are they Pagan or Christian in origin?

German Lutherans

The word Advent is from the Latin word meaning coming.  Traced back to the 19^thcentury, where families would mark every day until Christmas Eve, starting on December the 1st, by marking in chalk on their front door.

Signifying the start of the month where German Lutherans would prepare for baptism and cerebrating Christ’s birth.

Victorian Invention

The first known example of the Advent calendar can be dated back to 1851.  From the humble beginnings of chalking the days of Advent on your front door, to the first known handmade wooden Advent calendar.

This amalgamated into paper Advent calendars by the end of the Victorian era and early 20^th century.

Break Out of War

German born, Gerhard Lang, is considered to be the first maker of the printed Advent calendar.

They became very popular in the mid part of the 20^th century, and Gerhard had to stop production with the outbreak of World War II, as cardboard became rationed in Germany.

It thus became forbidden to print any Advent calendar that had depictions of Nazi ideology, so the Nazi Party started to produce their own.

It wasn’t until after the war that they went back to wintry scenes of long-ago Christmases on their paper Advent calendars.

After The War

By 1946, a man from Stuttgart named Richard Sellmer, created a calendar that depicted a more traditional season of Christmases long-ago. Named “Little Town”, it wasn’t long before Sellmer was mass producing them.

Coming to America

By the 1950s The Advent calendar had made its way stateside and was more popular and more adorable.

Cadbury Chocolate

It wasn’t until 1971 that the world-famous chocolatier launched their own version of the chocolate Advent calendar in the UK.  It had been popular in the States since the late 1950s.

Richard Sellmer

Although we owe a lot to the famous chocolate makers for bringing these to the forefront of our Christmas traditions, it’s really Richard Sellmer who we have to thank. His company, which is still in business today, now makes over 140 varieties of the Advent calendar.

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If you would like to own your own Cardboard Victorian Advent calendar, please click on the pictures