Advent rituals or stories

October 17, 2011 5:56 AM

Every few years I enjoy reading Jostein Gaarder's The Christmas Mystery. Can you suggest other rituals or stories that follow the advent structure?

I'm not Christian but am happy to follow religious patterns (the end point being Christmas in all its forms). We already have calendars.

posted by Huw to Society & Culture (4 answers total)

Susan Cooper's young adult fantasy book The Dark Is Rising begins on Midwinter's Eve and ends on the Twelfth Night. It's a very English version of what you're talking about.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:15 AM on October 17, 2011

Not Advent, obviously. Sorry about that. But a similar idea.
posted by hydropsyche at 6:16 AM on October 17, 2011

Not stories, but rituals: as kids we used to set up a nativity scene at one end of the house, and put camels and wise men at the other end. Every day during advent we moved them a step closer to the nativity scene, with them "arriving" on Epiphany. They generally migrated along windowsills and mantelpieces, sometimes traversing great expanses of Skirting Board.

The other, more traditional one, is the advent candles. You need four white candles and a red one, often set into a wreath. Each Sunday in advent, a new candle is lit, and the red one on Christmas day. You can burn the candles that have already been lit at every meal if you like to be extra festive.
posted by lollusc at 6:00 PM on October 17, 2011

Response by poster: Thank you, hydropsyche and lolls, those are both excellent answers. John Masefield's The Box of Delights is similar to The Dark is Rising (which I read a very long time ago), and this will prompt me to re-read it.

The moving nativity characters is something my young daughters would very much enjoy, so I'll try that too.

Thanks again!
posted by Huw at 8:57 AM on October 19, 2011