Advent calendar
[4][5][6][7] Traditional Advent calendars feature the manger scene, Saint Nicholas and winter weather, while others range in theme, from sports to technology.
[8] They come in a multitude of forms, from a simple paper calendar with flaps covering each of the days to fabric pockets on a background scene to painted wooden boxes with cubby holes for small items.
Today, these calendars can often only be distinguished from the older copies by the poorer quality of the paper and printing after the war.
[12] The Richard Sellmer publishing house received the license to print advent calendars in December 1945 in Stuttgart, from their American occupiers.
Richard Sellmer manufactured the stand-up calendar The little town Die kleine Stadt designed by Elisabeth Lörcher.
[13] After the magazine Newsweek showed a picture of Eisenhower's grandson on an Advent calendar in December 1953, demand rose massively.
For instance, calendars for Switzerland leave out St. Nicholas, angels in the U.S. have no wings and religious themes are preferred in the United Kingdom.
The Ars Sacra publishing house in Munich produced carefully designed calendars full of small details, always focusing on religious themes.
Between 1954 and 1976, Gudrun Keussen was primarily responsible for designing the approximately 30 calendars produced by the publishing house.
[15] Calendars designed by East Germans, such as Kurt Brandes and Fritz Baumgarten, were among those printed by the Korsch publishing house in Munich, which was founded in 1951.
Since 2017, Der Andere Advent has an edition for children between the age of 7 and 11 which includes stories, experiments, comics and games.
[18] This Advent calendar gained nationwide popularity in the 1950s, when it was a mass-produced article that was offered at an affordable price.
In Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, there is a tradition of having a Julekalender (Swedish: Julkalender, Finnish: Joulukalenteri, Icelandic: Jóladagatal; the local word for a Yule—or Christmas—calendar) in the form of a television or radio show, starting on December 1 and ending on Christmas Eve (December 24).
A classic example of a julekalender enjoyed by children, as well as adults, if purely for nostalgic reasons, is the 1979 Norwegian television show Jul i Skomakergata.
