CHRISTMAS, with all its rituals and traditions, begins with the appearance of the Advent calendar. How well I remember stealing downstairs in my nightdress as a child on December 1 to prise open the cardboard door before the rest of the household was awake. Even now, I can visualise the candle behind number one, with its evergreen wreath and flame dusted with glitter. It wasn't a surprise because this was the same Advent calendar we'd had the year before, with the doors pressed firmly shut again. Yet, somehow, this familiarity didn't matter a jot; in fact, it was all part of the build-up, gently melding memories and nostalgia to last a lifetime.
Advent without a calendar to track the mounting excitement is unthinkable, yet, although the innovation has delighted children for generations, the tradition is not as old as you might think. As the historian Martin Johnes points out, Advent calendars, 'as do so many British Christmas traditions, have their roots outside the UK. They are an 'evolution of a practice found in Germany of counting down through the Christian festival of Advent towards Christmas,' he writes in Christmas and the British (2016).
Advent, from the Latin for arrival or coming, means the period of preparation for the birth of Our Lord. Pope Gregory the Great (in office 590-604) fixed the season of Advent at four weeks and thence grew the tradition of lighting a candle on each of the four Sundays of the period. In 19th-century Germany, observant Lutheran families would make a chalk mark on the door for every day in December until Christmas Eve. Many think the first modern Advent calendar we would recognise dates from 1851, when a Protestant bookseller created a wooden calendar with a devotional image for each day.
Denne historien er fra November 13, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra November 13, 2024-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Tales as old as time
By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth
Do the active farmer test
Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts
SOS: save our wild salmon
Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish
Into the deep
Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel
It's alive!
Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters
There's orange gold in them thar fields
A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd
True blues
I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.
Oh so hip
Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland
A best kept secret
Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning
