Counting down to Christmas with an Advent calendar full of wine

It’s all the rage, evidently. Check out the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPzNPDxUChE

The story:

A discount supermarket chain is making it a little easier to offer a toast to every day of Advent this year.

Aldi, one of the world’s largest grocery store chains, will start selling a set of 24 miniature bottles of wine for the first time in its U.S. stores for those observing the religious days leading up to Christmas. The bottles – two of each of 12 different varieties – are intended to be drunk in conjunction with the Advent calendar.

For teetotalers, Aldi is also offering a set with an assortment of imported cheeses.

The wine calendar … is priced at $69.99 – or $2.92 for each 6.37-ounce bottle. The 24 small bottles are collectively equal in volume to about six full-size bottles. The sets were a hit in the United Kingdom last year.

Read more. 

This is a far cry from the Advent calendars I remember as a child.

Where did the tradition begin? Glad you asked: 

The Advent calendar was first used by German Lutherans in the 19th and 20th centuries but is now ubiquitous among adherents of many Christian denominations.

Traditional Advent calendars feature the manger scene, Saint Nicholas and winter weather, while others range in theme, from sports to technology. They come in a multitude of forms, from a simple paper calendar with flaps covering each of the days to fabric pockets on a background scene to painted wooden boxes with cubby holes for small items.

Many Advent calendars take the form of a large rectangular card with “windows,” one for each day of December leading up to and including Christmas Eve (December 24). Consecutive doors are opened every day leading up to Christmas, beginning on the start of the Advent season for that year, or in the case of reusable Advent calendars, December 1. Often the doors are distributed across the calendar in no particular order. The calendar windows open to reveal an image, a poem, a portion of a story (such as the story of the Nativity of Jesus), or a small gift, such as a toy or a chocolate item. Often, each window has a Bibleverse and Christian prayer printed on it, which Christians incorporate as part of their daily Advent devotions.  Advent calendars may also have puzzles and games printed on their reverse side.

The long-established British magazine Country Life incorporates an Advent calendar—which it describes as “our famous Advent calendar”—in its cover for the final issue of November.

There are many variations of Advent calendar, including social media Advent calendars, and string up reusable Advent calendars. Many towns have created living advent calendars. Some Advent calendars even eschew traditional Christmas motifs and themes, focusing only on Jesus as the central character of the Christmas story.

Looking for another way to mark Advent? Try this.