“Remember, the real spirit of Christmas is in your heart.”
The Polar Express
December is coming and there is no shortage of traditions at this time of year.
Among them, in festively decorated homes, children are finally starting to open the boxes of the Advent Calendar. Small bags, small drawers or boxes in various shapes, with small sweets or prizes, accompany us day by day until Christmas.
The Advent Calendar originated in northern Europe, in Germany, where, at the end of the 19th century, the little Gherard Lang, extremely impatient to celebrate Christmas, used to ask to his mother every day how many days were left until Christmas. Tired of hearing the same question every day, the little boy’s mum decided to bake some typical Christmas biscuits, to divide them into 24 small bags and to give one to little Gherard every day, from the 1st of December to Christmas Eve, so that it would be easy for him as well to count the days until Christmas.
This was a brilliant idea that the child loved and it was clearly repeated every year. When he grew up, Gherard developed and reworked his mother’s idea and thus officially created the first Advent Calendar: a poster board with 24 windows to be filled in at will to help children keep time until Christmas.
It was 1920 and, initially, the countdown started from the first Sunday of Advent (which this year was 28 November). Advent, from the Latin adventus, means “coming” and is in fact the 4-week period leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus.
Advent Calendars have now conquered the world, in the true sense of the word. There are so many different types and shapes: those faithful to their original-ones with chocolate or biscuits, those made of cardboard with drawings inspired by the Christmas behind each window, those with small gifts and others that contain phrases or poems.
At the AbanoRitz we will make our own Advent Calendar, sharing with you a Christmas detail every day. Afterwards we look forward to seeing you here, to experience together the magic of Christmas, which at the AbanoRitz makes you feel immediately at Home, bringing us back to being nostalgically children and above all keeping up the tradition.
