50 Fun Facts About Advent

The first modern Advent wreath, made in 1839 to help children count the days, was built on which object?

A cartwheel from a mission school for poor children held a small candle for every weekday and a large one for each Sunday. Only the Sunday candles survive on wreaths today.

Which US president's grandson was pictured with an Advent calendar in Newsweek, sending American demand soaring?

Dwight D. Eisenhower was in his first year in office when the magazine ran the picture in December 1953. The next year's export calendar had the White House at its center, ringed by cowboys.

Which giant straw animal, raised in the Swedish city of Gävle at the start of Advent, do arsonists keep burning down?

A goat built of straw has stood in Gävle's Castle Square each winter since 1966. It has been burned again and again, despite security measures and a fire station close by.

Which saint is credited with staging the first live Christmas crib scene, in a cave at Greccio, Italy, in 1223?

Francis of Assisi's scene was acted out rather than carved. The tiny chapel where it is said to have taken place still stands in Greccio.

Which saint's feast on December 6 sees children in many countries leave out shoes to be filled with sweets overnight?

Saint Nicholas, a bishop of Myra, is said to have thrown money through a poor family's window, where it landed in shoes drying by the fire.

In which country did Lutheran families first count the days to Christmas with what became the Advent calendar?

Germany's Lutherans were using Advent calendars by the 1800s, and the custom has since spread to other churches. Many printed versions carry a Bible verse on each little door.

Which angel, who also appears to the prophet Daniel, tells Mary in Luke's Gospel that she will bear a son?

Gabriel's visit to Mary is known as the Annunciation. Its feast is usually kept on March 25, nine months before Christmas Day.

Which town does the Old Testament prophet Micah name as the birthplace of a future ruler of Israel?

Bethlehem is 'little among the thousands of Judah' in Micah's words. In Matthew's Gospel the chief priests quote the prophecy to King Herod when the wise men come asking.

The season of Advent takes its name from the Latin word adventus, which has what meaning in English?

Coming is the sense of adventus, and the season looks ahead to two of them: the birth of Jesus and his promised return at the end of time.

Which saint's day on December 13 is marked in Sweden by girls in white gowns wearing crowns of candles?

Saint Lucy is said to have worn a wreath of candles to light her way as she carried food to Christians in hiding. Her name comes from the Latin word for light.

Which color do Catholic priests wear on most Sundays of Advent, the same shade used throughout Lent?

Violet marks both seasons as times of preparation. It has been the usual Advent color in Western churches since about the 13th century, when one pope argued for black.

What Latin name does the third Sunday of Advent take from the first word of its entrance chant at Mass?

Gaudete, Latin for 'rejoice', opens a line from Paul's letter to the Philippians. The day gives a break about midway through an otherwise penitential season.

What color is the third candle lit on a Catholic Advent wreath, the only one that differs from the rest?

Rose vestments may be worn at Mass that day too, and the day was once nicknamed Rose Sunday. The shade returns once more in the middle of Lent.

What begins for Western churches on the First Sunday of Advent, weeks before the calendar turns on January 1?

The liturgical year starts over that day, so the Church's new year arrives about a month early. Eastern Orthodox churches begin theirs on September 1 instead.

Which hymn of praise is left out of Sunday Mass during Advent so that it returns with fresh force at Christmas?

The Gloria opens with the song the angels sing to the shepherds in Luke's Gospel, 'Glory to God in the highest', so Christmas night is when it comes back.

Which Old Testament prophet's line about a virgin bearing a son is quoted in Matthew's account of Jesus's birth?

Isaiah was so prized by Christians that his book has been called 'the Fifth Gospel'. His words also run through the libretto of Handel's Messiah.

Which preacher, said to have lived on locusts and wild honey, is the focus of the Gospels on two Advent Sundays?

John the Baptist calls on the crowds to 'prepare the way of the Lord'. Luke's Gospel makes him a relative of Jesus, born about six months before him.

Which relative does the pregnant Mary hurry to visit in Luke's Gospel, a meeting Christians call the Visitation?

Elizabeth, long childless and by then elderly, was six months pregnant herself. Luke says her baby leaped in her womb at the sound of Mary's greeting.

Which name, Hebrew for 'God with us', does Matthew's Gospel give to the child Mary is to bear?

Emmanuel appears as Matthew explains Joseph's dream, in which an angel tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife.

Which apostle's feast on November 30 fixes the start of Advent, which opens on the Sunday nearest to it?

Saint Andrew, the fisherman brother of Peter, has his feast on a date that keeps the first day of Advent between November 27 and December 3.

Which title of Mary, honored on December 12, recalls her reported appearances to Juan Diego near Mexico City in 1531?

Our Lady of Guadalupe is venerated through an image on a cloak that hangs in a Mexico City basilica. Her feast day always falls within Advent.

Which nine-night Mexican procession re-enacts Mary and Joseph's search for a room, ending each evening with a piñata?

Las Posadas means 'the inns'. Players dressed as the couple go to a different house each night, sing to ask for shelter and are welcomed in to pray and feast.

Which horned figure of Alpine folklore roams the streets on the night of December 5 to punish badly behaved children?

Krampus carries a bundle of birch branches to swat children with, while the saint he escorts rewards the well-behaved ones with small gifts.

In which country do Catholics rise before dawn for Simbang Gabi, nine days of Masses leading up to Christmas?

The Philippines took up the early hour in the Spanish colonial era, so that farmers could hear Mass and still reach the fields by sunrise.

The Jesse Tree, hung through Advent with symbols of Jesus's ancestors, is named for the father of which king?

David heads a royal line that medieval artists drew as a tree rising from the sleeping Jesse. It became a favorite subject for stained-glass windows.

Which feast on December 8, a holy day for Catholics in Advent, honors Mary as patroness of the United States?

Immaculate Conception refers to Mary's own beginning free from original sin, not to that of Jesus. The feast falls nine months before her birthday on September 8.

In a Christingle, lit by children at Advent services, a candle is pushed into which fruit to represent the world?

An orange carries a red ribbon and sweets or dried fruit as well as the candle. The custom began in the Moravian Church in the 1700s as just a candle wrapped in ribbon.

Which Catholic feast, created by Pope Pius XI in 1925, now falls on the final Sunday before Advent begins?

Christ the King was Pius XI's answer to rising secularism and extreme nationalism. It was first kept on the last Sunday of October, until Pope Paul VI moved it to its present place.

Which song of praise by Mary in Luke's Gospel is sung or recited every evening at vespers in Catholic churches?

The Magnificat takes its name from the first word of its Latin text, 'My soul magnifies the Lord'. Composers from the Renaissance onward, Monteverdi among them, have set it to music.

What are the seven chants sung at vespers from December 17 to 23 called, each hailing the Messiah by a different title?

The O Antiphons each open with the word 'O', as in 'O Wisdom'. Read from last to first, the initials of their Latin titles appear to spell 'ero cras', meaning 'tomorrow I will be there'.

What do Eastern Orthodox Christians call their 40-day season of abstinence that corresponds to the Western Advent?

The Nativity Fast runs from November 15 to December 24, and by tradition it means giving up meat, eggs and dairy, plus fish, oil and wine on the stricter days. The Western season lasts only about four weeks.

Which Advent Mass honoring Mary, said by candlelight before sunrise, takes its name from its opening word?

Rorate begins the Latin for 'Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above'. The Mass starts in a dark church lit only by candles, and day breaks as it goes on.

Early Advent was a fast nicknamed the Lent of which bishop, because it began after his feast on November 11?

Martin of Tours gave his name to Saint Martin's Lent, which began as an order from a later bishop of his own city to fast three days a week until Christmas.

Which priest in Luke's Gospel is struck mute for doubting an angel's news that his elderly wife will bear a son?

Zechariah gets his voice back only when he writes the baby's name on a tablet. He then breaks into the hymn of praise known as the Benedictus.

Handel's Messiah sets a prophecy calling a child Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and what else?

Prince of Peace ends the list of titles in the chorus 'For unto us a child is born'. The verse adds that the government shall be upon the child's shoulder.

In a prophecy read at Mass in Advent, nations give up war and beat their swords into which farming tools?

Plowshares are the cutting blades of a plow, and the same verse turns spears into pruning hooks. A bronze statue of a man hammering a sword into one stands in the United Nations garden.

In the 'peaceable kingdom' prophecy read at Mass in Advent, which animal is the wolf pictured living beside?

The lamb is paired with the wolf, not with the lion of the popular misquotation. In the verse itself the young lion keeps company with a calf.

Which Roman emperor's census decree sends Mary and Joseph on their journey in Luke's account of Jesus's birth?

Augustus decreed that 'all the world should be registered', Luke writes, and he dates the count to the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

The greetings an angel and a cousin give the mother of Jesus in Luke's Gospel open which Catholic prayer?

The Hail Mary joins the angel's 'Hail, full of grace' to her cousin's 'Blessed art thou among women'. The closing plea for prayers was added later and first printed in 1495.

Which hymn writer penned the Advent favorite 'Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus' as well as 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'?

Charles Wesley wrote the Advent hymn in 1744 after reflecting on the orphans living around him. He published it in a collection of Christmas hymns.

Which French city has held the Christkindelsmärik, one of Europe's oldest Christmas markets, since 1570?

Strasbourg sets the market out around its cathedral on the Grande Île, the island at the heart of the old city. The name is Alsatian dialect for 'market of the infant Jesus'.

Which composer wrote the cantata 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland' for the first Sunday of Advent in 1714?

Johann Sebastian Bach built it on Luther's chief Advent hymn. In Leipzig, where he later worked, that Sunday was the last chance to hear a cantata before Christmas.

Which Italian city's Ambrosian Rite keeps a six-week Advent, two weeks longer than the Roman one?

Milan's rite is named for Ambrose, the city's bishop in the fourth century. Its Advent begins in mid-November, and its Lent has no Ash Wednesday.

Sermons on Advent's four Sundays traditionally covered the Four Last Things: death, judgment, heaven and what?

Hell completes the list, which a sixteenth-century saint urged beginners in religion to meditate on. Purgatory, an intermediate state, is not among the four.

On Advent's first Sunday in 2011, English-speaking Catholics began answering 'And with your spirit' in place of what?

'And also with you' was a loose rendering of the Latin 'Et cum spiritu tuo'. A new, more literal translation of the whole Missal came into use that day in most English-speaking countries.

How many doors does a traditional Advent calendar have, the last of them opened on Christmas Eve?

Each of the 24 doors stands for a day from the first of December, a format that became standard only after 1945. Advent itself lasts anywhere from 22 to 28 days.

Which region's broadcasters air a television 'Christmas calendar' each December, one episode a day until Christmas Eve?

The Nordic countries know the show as a julekalender, julkalender or joulukalenteri, the local words for a Yule calendar. Some series go out on radio.

Which Advent evergreen, first set up by Virginia Lutherans in 1957, carries only white and gold symbols of Jesus?

The Chrismon tree began at Ascension Lutheran Church in Danville, where a parishioner made ornaments from the monograms that early Christians used for Jesus.

The blue used by some Anglican churches in Advent is called 'Sarum blue' after which English cathedral city?

Salisbury's old name was Sarum, but the link is shaky. One liturgist held that the medieval Advent color there was red.

Which Old Testament prophet promises a messenger to prepare the way, and Elijah's return before the day of the Lord?

Malachi's book closes the Old Testament in most Christian Bibles, and Mark's Gospel quotes the messenger line in its opening verses.