Why Advent?

Advent marks the weeks before Christmas and is a time of anticipation, preparation and reflection leading up to Christmas Day.

Advent starts with the aptly named Advent Sunday.  This is the 4th Sunday before Christmas Day and usually falls between 27th November and 3rd December.  This year, 2023, it is 3rd December.

Churches and homes would have an Advent Wreath or Crown with a candle being lit on each Sunday.  Although the practice is traditionally a Lutheran practice, it has spread from it's origins in Germany to many other Christian denominations and countries.

Normally there are four candles, for the four Advent Sundays, often coloured and a fifth, white candle to be lit on Christmas Day.

Whilst the practice can be dated to the 16th Century, it wasn't until the mid 19th Century that the practice became more wide spread due to the the work of Johann Hinrich Wiehern.  During Advent, the children at the mission school, that he founded, would ask daily if it was Christmas yet.  

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So, in 1839 he took a cartwheel and added candles to it.  Each week day a small candle was lit and on Sundays a larger candle.  Counting down the days to Christmas.

By the 1920s the custom had been adopted by other Christian denominations in Germany and soon spread, in the 1930s to North America.

Behind the wreath, there is symbology and meaning.

• Circular wreath - God's infinite love
• Evergreen leaves - eternal life
• Candles - the light of God

But even these have evolved over the years with each of the candles being give a specific meaning that can be meditated on when lit.

1. Week 1 - hope / Messiah or prophecy candle
2. Week 2 - love / Bethlehem candle
3. Week 3 - joy / Shepard Candle
4. Week 4 - peace / Angle Candle

The final, and fifth candle (often white) is lit on Christmas Eve and is often called the 'Christ Candle'.  It's often lit again on Christmas Day and throughout the days following.  In some traditions, it's also lit during Ephiphaytide.

​The advent wreath concept, of counting down to Christmas, has also spawned other Advent practices that we are familiar with.

Where a full wreath isn't possible, then a single candle marked with the days is often chosen.

I love these crocheted socks by my friend, Nicola Hunt

And who cannot forget Advent Calendars which I explored last year in my lace notes.

These days they have evolved into chocolate filled wonders or individual bags of lovely things.

We might order an Advent package of mini skeins to open each day or start a Make Along where we receive a few rows of a pattern to make each day.  Ravelry and pattern designers' blogs are full of offers to sign up during October and November with the first parts released on 1st December.

For the makers amongst us, Advent calendars offer an opportunity to create small gifts or the containers for such things.

I've explored some of the advent traditions in my next blog