1st Day – From 1 to 24…

Welcome to the Decor-Art Advent calendar! I hope you will decide to count and celebrate all days in anticipation of Christmas together with us.

I promise you 24 exciting posts in a row! There’ll be no chocolates… but you might come across some exciting gifts – great ideas for decorating your rooms, tasty recipes and even interesting stories. Actually, lets start with one – history of the Advent calendar (found on Wikipedia):

Image found on www.sellmer-verlag.de

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     “The origins of the Advent calendar come from German Lutherans who, at least as early as the beginning of the 19th century would count down the first 24 days of December physically. Often this meant simply drawing a chalk line on the door each day, beginning on December 1. Some families had more elaborate means of marking the days, such as lighting a new candle or hanging a little religious picture on the wall each day.

     The first known Advent calendar was handmade in 1851. According to the Lower Austrian Landesmuseum, the first printed Advent calendar was produced in Hamburg in 1902 by a protestant bookshop. Other authorities state that a Swabian parishioner, Gerhard Lang, was responsible for the first printed calendar, in 1908.

     Lang was certainly the progenitor of today’s calendar. He was a printer in the firm Reichhold & Lang of Munich who, in 1908, made 24 little colored pictures that could be affixed to a piece of cardboard. Several years later, he introduced a calendar with 24 little doors. He created and marketed at least 30 designs before his firm went out of business in the 1930s. In this same time period, Sankt Johannis Printing Company started producing religious Advent calendars, with Bible verses instead of pictures behind the doors.

     The practice disappeared during World War II, apparently to save paper. After the war, Richard Sellmer of Stuttgart resurrected the commercial Advent calendar and is responsible for its widespread popularity. His company, Richard Sellmer Verlag, today maintains a stock of over 1,000,000 calendars worldwide. Other companies such as Cadbury’s who specialise in the making of calendars have similar stocks, if not higher.”

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I hope you will adopt one of these lovely traditions – you see, there’s no need to buy a conventional Advent calendar, you can make one (very special and even unique) yourself. For e.g. I especially like the idea of hanging little religious pictures on the wall; you should certainly have a beautiful collection by the time you reach Christmas Eve!

By the way, I have already created something that could be called my interpretation of an Advent calendar and I plan to share that easy to execute idea with you TOMORROW (don’t disappear!).

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Anyway, here’s one more little gift to brighten up this period of anticipation… the new issue of A Muse for Life!

It’s probably a bit shorter than the 3 previous issues, yet I think you will find some lovely stuff in there! You need to meet Dee Hardwicke and see her lovely colourful tiles, you’ll find 2 recipes for tasty treats, hopefully will be encouraged to start your volunteering career, find out why your garden can be left untidy for the cold period and finally will discover the history of German Christmas Markets.

Dive in! Here’s the link, that should be clicked immediately.

See you all tomorrow, right? K.