A Christmas poll - Advent Calendars!

[Moonshadow]

I'm going to take a wild guess here, and assume that most people who celebrate Christmas know what an advent calendar is (if you don't here is a wiki link - Advent Calendar!) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_calendar)

My question is, to all who have opened these before, or might even be doing it still, is;

In which order do you open all the doors?

Do you open them starting at 1, all the way up to whenever it finishes, or do you start it at the highest number and work your way back down, as if you were counting how many sleeps until Christmas there were left?

[Lady Moreta]

I miss our Advent Calendar... it was awesome. It was like a giant pop-up/stand up card... anyway...

We always opened it from 1-24, but that's the way the calendar itself was designed. This one just had pictures behind it, but they got progressively better and progressively more related to the birth of Jesus as the month went on. They started out with presents and trees and Christmas Eve I think was baby Jesus in a manger.

I'd love to get a new one, but the one I want is $50 - it's a wooden stable scene, and it has little doors with a magnetic part of the nativity scene inside. You open one up each day and gradually build up a nativiy scene. I want one, but I'm not quite solvent enough to be able to fork out $50 for an advent calendar. We won't talk about the $120 nativity scene I bought last year...

[Thufir]

1 - 25 (Unless it only went to 24, I can't remember). The number is for the date.

[Kastanok]

1->24, but don't have one this year. I don't like getting tacky cheap miserly cardboard advent calenders. At the family home we've got a big hand-sewen (from a kit) one with a printed image of traditional toys gathered around an open fireplace, surrounded by stocking-shaped pockets for every day. It's lovely :)

[Mauve Shirt]

1 to 24. Ours was like Moreta's, the pictures getting more related to Jesus as the days go by.

[wxdruid]

Catlover got an advent calendar from her Grandma. She sent it from Germany, so everything is written in german. We open the doors from 1-24 to correspond with the dates in the month.

[Heliomance]

I miss our Advent Calendar... it was awesome. It was like a giant pop-up/stand up card... anyway...

We always opened it from 1-24, but that's the way the calendar itself was designed. This one just had pictures behind it, but they got progressively better and progressively more related to the birth of Jesus as the month went on. They started out with presents and trees and Christmas Eve I think was baby Jesus in a manger.

I'd love to get a new one, but the one I want is $50 - it's a wooden stable scene, and it has little doors with a magnetic part of the nativity scene inside. You open one up each day and gradually build up a nativiy scene. I want one, but I'm not quite solvent enough to be able to fork out $50 for an advent calendar. We won't talk about the $120 nativity scene I bought last year...

We've got one a bit like that - the pieces aren't magnetic, but otherwise it's pretty much exactly the same. It's a stable on top of a box with little drawers, and in every drawer there's a resin (I think) figurine to add to the nativity.

We've also got one where every day is a little cardboard book, telling through December the story of the Nutcracker. Each book's got a little loop on it so you can hang it on the tree as well.

[pffh]

1 -> 24 and there is chocolate behind each door!
Om nom nom nom it's a good way to get the holiday mood going while studying in december.

[ApeofLight]

1 to 24/25 whichever date it went to.

I remember that I usual got the cheap ones with chocolate but we also had one that was musical and each day you would take out the little paper ornament that told you what the song was and then you press the button and each day you got a new song. I also remember one where it was legos. Each day you got a new little lego toy, like a lego snowman or something like that, and once you got all of them it made one big lego thing.

Hearing about those other advent calendars makes me want to get one now too.

[KerfuffleMach2]

I start at 1. and end at 24.

You know...I think next time I get one, I'll just pick a random number each day. Just because I can.

[Dr.Epic]

I'm pretty sure you go from lowest to highest.

[Castaras]

1-24/25. Most calenders you get a big chocolate on the 24th/25th to celebrate that christmas is here at last.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Huh, big Christmas buff my whole life and never even heard of an Advent calendar. Had to look up what Advent was, actually.

May just not be widely recognized in my protestant neck of the woods.

[Castaras]

Huh, big Christmas buff my whole life and never even heard of an Advent calendar. Had to look up what Advent was, actually. Is it a mainly Catholic thing?


My family are Atheist and I'm Agnostic, and we still do it. :smalltongue: Pretty much all my friends have them and have had them always. Maybe us British have them more than you Americans?

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Hmm, could be.

Mauve shows she's americano however. She'd be the best one to ask.

[Quincunx]

A little of column A, a little of column B. I didn't know about them 'til high school, where the German language students would sell them as trip fundraisers. Think I accounted for about half my friend's sales, as my opening order was 1-2-3-4-this isn't going to last the month anyway. :smallamused:

[Eldan]

Can't be a British only thing, we do it too. Probably just not an American thing, then.

In any case, we had a huge one. Like, taking up an entire wall, with a cloth pocket for each day. Usually filled with a cookie for each of us (two kids). When I was little and didn't have a brother yet, my mother once filled it with Lego. That was the best calendar ever. :smallredface:

Also: always started with number one on the first, though I don't have one this year. We also usually have larger doors on Sundays, to go along with the candles.

[Lady Moreta]

I love the idea of a Lego Advent calendar! I wonder if I could find one... my husband would love me :smallbiggrin:

[CrimsonAngel]

I usually get ones with chocolate behind little doors in November, but this year I got a lego advent calender at Disney World. :smallbiggrin: Every day I get a different lego figure and sometimes they get little toys. I've got a snowman, a little boy, a little girl, a little toy truck, a keyboard, a skateboard and ramp, and a drum set.

[Danne]

Can't be a British only thing, we do it too. Probably just not an American thing, then.

No, we have them here, too.

[Eldan]

I love the idea of a Lego Advent calendar! I wonder if I could find one... my husband would love me :smallbiggrin:

My parents made that one themselves, actually. We had, at the time, a calendar with a little wooden drawer for each day, about five centimeters deep. They bought a small set of Lego (one of the smallest ones, less than a hundred parts, probably) and put two or three parts in every day, then the building plan on the last day. It was great, especially figuring out what it actually was :smallbiggrin: (Turned out to be some kind of medieval soldier on a small two-wheel wagon. Horse included).

[Kastanok]

I usually get ones with chocolate behind little doors in November, but this year I got a lego advent calender at Disney World. :smallbiggrin: Every day I get a different lego figure and sometimes they get little toys. I've got a snowman, a little boy, a little girl, a little toy truck, a keyboard, a skateboard and ramp, and a drum set.

Oh, I want! I miss being young enough for Lego :(

[KerfuffleMach2]

Oh, I want! I miss being young enough for Lego :(

Nobody says you can't go buy Lego stuffs.

I still do.

[Eldan]

I would if I had the space in my room.

Man, I miss legos. Whenever I want to play with them, I need to visit my godson. It's christmas soon, so I can buy more Lego for him :smallbiggrin:

[Meg]

I usually get ones with chocolate behind little doors in November, but this year I got a lego advent calender at Disney World. :smallbiggrin: Every day I get a different lego figure and sometimes they get little toys. I've got a snowman, a little boy, a little girl, a little toy truck, a keyboard, a skateboard and ramp, and a drum set.

Aww, same! The LEGO advent calendar is the best. We also have a lovely hand-made one that my mom sewed a while back. It's got little loops that you hang stuff on.

And I do open the doors on the LEGO one from 1 to 24.

And does anyone else do an advent wreath on Sundays? I always have, but a few of my friends haven't heard of them.

[AshDesert]

We have 25 little dolls of characters at the nativity with velcro on the back to attach to a nativity scene on the top of the calendar, starting the Magi's camels on the first, then the animals in the stable, to the shepherds, the Magi, six herald angels that are on a ribbon above the scene, then Joseph, then Mary on Christmas Eve, and baby Jesus on the 25th.

[Lady Moreta]

And does anyone else do an advent wreath on Sundays? I always have, but a few of my friends haven't heard of them.

I never have... what's an advent wreath?

[Sneak]

1-24, always. Our advent calendars always had chocolate.

I did get the Lego advent calendar one year as well. Good times.

[RandomNPC]

I love the idea of a Lego Advent calendar! I wonder if I could find one... my husband would love me :smallbiggrin:

Got one for my son at the grocery store this year. To bad it's all preferated and not actually doors or something, I'd like to reload it for next year with new stuf.

[RS14]

Can't be a British only thing, we do it too. Probably just not an American thing, then.



And does anyone else do an advent wreath on Sundays? I always have, but a few of my friends haven't heard of them.

I grew up with both (in Georgia, USA).

Also, 1 -> 24. It's a calendar; open the door corresponding to the date.

[RebelRogue]

I never have... what's an advent wreath?
A wreath with four candles. Each sunday before christmas you light up an increasing number of the candles. The word advent itself is closely tied to these sundays here (Denmark, i.e. very much protestant territory). Advent calendars (usually, just called christmas calendars) are also very common.

[Winter_Wolf]

Once I discovered that there was chocolate behind each door, I ended up opening all of the doors and raiding the chocolate supply, then pushing the door back closed until the day it was "supposed" to be opened. We stopped getting those calendars shortly thereafter. It was probably coincidence. :smallbiggrin:

[Liriel]

We had advent trees my Grammy had made. It was really just a crocheted bit probably 4' long and 6" wide with a wooden circle up top to hang from and a holiday crocheted bit inside (mine was a Christmas tree). My parents got little tiny stocking stuffer type presents, wrapped them and dated them and tied them with ribbon to the advent tree. Every night before bed, we'd get to open a present from our advent tree. Always 1-->24. (Of course, there was the whole 'be good or no present tonight!' warnings.)

It was re-usable, easy to store (rolled up), and customizable! I loved it! We don't do it anymore now that we're older.

Never heard of the advent wreath though.

Oh, and V-T, none of my friends knew what my advent tree was when I was growing up. So I'm guessing it isn't all that common in the U.S. (They were jealous when I explained it though! :smallbiggrin:) But I do see the chocolate ones in the stores, so...*shrugs*.

[Meg]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_E5cSkRNNzuk/SxLwdNyLZwI/AAAAAAAAHA8/uVPy7KLZt4I/s1600/AdventWreath.jpg

^Advent wreath

One candle a week, the pink candle is lit in the third week. It's kind of like a menorah, but you only light it on Sundays. Anyway, I'm Catholic, and I've always done both a wreath and a calendar. Odd, there doesn't seem to be a regional or denominational pattern among who observes advent and with what.

[Eldan]

Hmm. We always had short, fat, red candles. Otherwise the same. We live in a mostly catholic area. (My father is happy to call himself a "heathen", the rest of the family prefers "atheist" or "agnostic").

[RebelRogue]

Candles can be any color here, but red and white are most common. I've never seen the third one being different before. Most people here are atheists as well, but christmas is such and ingrained tradition, that people still celebrate it anyway. Actually, we still use the word for the pagan winter solstice festival: 'jul' (or 'yule' as it is known in english). It is derived from the word 'hjul' which means wheel and refers to the turning of the year. A lot of bad puns is made of this each year, of course...

[Liriel]

One candle a week, the pink candle is lit in the third week. It's kind of like a menorah, but you only light it on Sundays.

What is the significance of the 3rd week being a different color? (Of course if that gets too much on the religion no-no, feel free to just say so.)


I guess I should point out that I am not Catholic - despite having done the advent tree.

[Lady Moreta]

I guess I should point out that I am not Catholic - despite having done the advent tree.

We always had an advent calendar and no one in my family is Catholic either.

I like the wreath, tis pretty :smallsmile:

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: While this is all pretty friendly and non-confrontational, it's also plainly real world religion.