Having just received a Fourth Advent video via messenger, in which The Count of Sesame Street counted the four burning candles, I wondered how much this is common outside of Germany.
Wikipedia tells me that the tradition also is followed in other countries nowadays, but not how much.
So:
Do you know this in your country or maybe even light some candles to count the remaining time until Christmas yourself?
Or have you never heard of it before?
Do you perhaps have any other similar countdown traditions (we e.g. also have Christmas calendars giving you a little tread every day until Christmas)?
I was a little confused by your calling it an “advent wreath”. It is quite common to light advent candles here in Sweden, counting down the number of weeks until the yule evening. Yule calendars are also fairly frequent, often with little gifts (chocolates, tea or whatever) for each day.
Then there are actual yule wreaths, which we often decorate our doors with, like this one:
Funny thing: we are currently having not a traditional Advent Wreath at home, but a straight line of elks.
And NO, it is not from Ikea, but hand-made by a local charity employing hadicapped people…
But might perhaps have gotten its inspiration from you guys up there?
Oh yeah, you could definitely find something like that in a Swedish home, although usually we have taller candles in the advent candelabra (so it becomes obvious that the earlier ones have been burning down for longer)
Yes, that is a major drawback of that design.
But the elks throw cool shadows on the wall… :-)