Advent Calendar

Today is the 4th day of Advent. Advent marks the first day of the church calendar thus Dec 1st is considered the Christian New Year in some circles. Part of the fun of this season is counting down to Christmas and this too have been commercialised with confectioneries selling Advent calendars to help children in this counting down process. It's all part of build up in the anticipation of Christmas and they have a chocolate in each window. My housemate brought home an Advent calendar, but ours is a serious ("proper") Advent calendar. It does not have any chocolate in the windows and each day we open the relevant window to read the verse for the day. We also have a mini Advent wreath which we lighted the first candle last Sunday.

The church I attend here has a huge calendar which marks the 4 Sundays of Advent. It's a painting of a stable with different windows that peer into the stable. Painted by one of our church members - it's the size of stage backdrop. Very cool and the windows have a bag of chocolates in it too!!

Here are some pictures to give you an idea.
Click on image to view enlarged image. Take a look inside the windows of the LOTR calendar here. I must admit that the idea of a LOTR advent calendar is a little too commercialised for me.