Advent is the period of preparation before Christmas in the Christian calendar, beginning on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day and running to Christmas Eve. In a largely secular Britain it survives mainly through three things: calendars, candles and carols.
The advent calendar
A German invention, adopted by Britain and then thoroughly commercialised. The first printed calendars appeared in Germany around 1900; Gerhard Lang is usually credited with the door-opening format, and chocolate was added in the 1950s.
The standard British calendar has 24 numbered doors, opened one a day from 1 December, each concealing a picture or a small chocolate. Opening a door early, or opening someone else’s, is a genuine childhood offence.
The format has expanded enormously. Britain now produces advent calendars containing gin miniatures, craft beer, cheese, whisky, tea, beauty products, Lego, dog treats and hot sauce. The most expensive run to several thousand pounds, which is some distance from the theological point.
The wreath and the candles
An advent wreath of evergreen holds five candles: four around the ring, lit one per Sunday, and a white one in the centre lit on Christmas Day. In most churches three are purple and one — for the third Sunday, Gaudete or “rejoice” Sunday — is pink, marking a brief lightening in an otherwise penitential season.
Advent is, formally, a season of preparation and restraint rather than celebration, which is why churches use purple, the same colour as Lent. Almost nobody outside the church observes this, and Christmas parties run throughout December regardless.
Nine Lessons and Carols
The most significant British Advent tradition, and one that is genuinely listened to by people who never attend church.
The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge has been broadcast on Christmas Eve since 1928. It opens, always, with a single unaccompanied treble voice beginning Once in Royal David’s City — and the boy who sings it is not told he has been chosen until moments before, to spare him the nerves.
The service is broadcast worldwide and is, for a great many British households, the moment Christmas actually starts.
Carol services and singing
December fills with carol services in churches, schools and cathedrals, and with carol singing — groups going door to door, often collecting for charity, and brass bands playing in shopping streets.
The British carol repertoire is largely Victorian: O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, In the Bleak Midwinter, Silent Night and God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen — where the comma placement is a genuine annual pedantry, since the phrase means “may God keep you merry” rather than addressing merry gentlemen.
Christingle
A children’s service, imported from the Moravian church and popularised in Britain by the Children’s Society from 1968. Each child holds an orange representing the world, wrapped in a red ribbon for the blood of Christ, studded with dried fruit on cocktail sticks for the four seasons, and topped with a lit candle. It is charming, and it involves a room full of small children holding naked flames, which adults find less charming.