Advent Calendar: From Religious Tradition to Marketing Tool

More people are buying advent calendars to bring the holiday experience closer to themselves and their loved ones — and more companies are using them to boost sales. We tell you where this phenomenon came from

How Advent Calendars arose and why Advent Calendar in the modern version is a box divided into numbered cells by the number of days of the Advent — the period preceding Western Christmas. Every day from the beginning of the Advent (between November 27 and December 3) until Christmas, the owner of the calendar opens one box and takes away a gift, which can be absolutely anything: from candles and candles to premium cosmetics and jewelry. In Germany in the early 19th century, Lutherans counted the days before Christmas by burning a candle or drawing a mark with chalk on the wall. In doing so, the children had to pray and remember what they had done good and bad for the past day. Since then, the tradition has changed, and today the Advent Calendar does not involve prayer, but in some variations it looks like rewarding a child with a gift for completing the task. The first wooden Advent calendar appeared around 1851. The creator of the Advent Calendar in its modern form is considered to be German from...