Advent

Heard in the wild

The longer version

What it means

Advent (from the Latin adventus, "coming") is the season of the four Sundays before Christmas. In liturgical churches it's a time of preparation with a double focus: looking back to Jesus' first coming at Bethlehem, and looking forward to His second. The mood is expectant rather than festive — traditional Advent readings are about John the Baptist, the prophets, and being ready, and the colors are purple (penitence) or blue (hope). Christmas proper begins on Christmas Eve and runs twelve days to Epiphany.

At home, Advent means the wreath — four candles in a ring of evergreens, one more lit each Sunday, often with a short reading — and calendars with a door for each day.

Why people say it

Christians who keep Advent say it rescues December from pure consumerism: before the celebration comes the waiting, and the waiting teaches something. It also holds the church's story together — Christ came, Christ will come again — in a way a single day can't. And it's beautiful: candles in the dark at the darkest time of the year.

How to respond

If a friend mentions Advent, they're probably from a liturgical church and probably lighting candles; "do you do the wreath?" is a friendly question. If you visit a liturgical church in December and the carols are few and the colors are purple, that's Advent, and Christmas is coming. If you'd like to try it, an Advent wreath is four candles and a reading; any bookstore has a devotional.

If you hear it in different churches

Catholic, Anglican/Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches keep Advent formally, with the wreath, the readings, and the colors. Orthodox keep a longer "Nativity Fast" of forty days before Christmas. Baptist, Pentecostal, and non-denominational churches historically didn't observe it but increasingly do — Advent devotionals and wreaths have spread widely. Nearly everyone has the chocolate calendar.

Where does “Advent” come from?

A period of preparation before Christmas is attested in Gaul and Spain by the late 300s, originally as a fast like Lent; by the 500s Rome kept four Sundays. The Advent wreath was invented by a German Lutheran pastor, Johann Hinrich Wichern, in 1839 for children at his mission house, and spread through Germany and then the world in the twentieth century. The pink candle marks Gaudete ("Rejoice") Sunday, the third, when the fast lightened. Advent calendars are German too, from the 1800s, and were first printed commercially around 1908.

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