The origins of chocolate in advent

With easter celebrations on the horizon as spring begins, there’s no doubt some of us are already looking to the chocolatey festivities ahead. While the origins of chocolate Easter eggs are relatively well known, the same might not be said for the chocolate we’ve only fairly recently enjoyed in our advent calendars in the build up to Christmas.

Advent is one of the pre-Christmas traditions that everyone is well familiar with, but one that most really don’t know the reasoning behind. So, what’s the story with advent, advent calendars and the chocolate we enjoy scoffing from them?

Why do we have advent?

Advent is fundamental part of the Christian celebration of Christmas and the liturgical (public worship) calendar. For many, the advent season represents an anticipatory period in the build up to Jesus Christ’s birth on the 25th December, but the full story behind advent goes deeper than that.

Derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming”, advent dates back to the 4th or 5th centuries in Spain and Gaul, where it was a season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January feast of epiphany – but actually nothing to do with Christmas. It was only in the 6th century that Romans tied advent to the “final” coming of Christ, before it became the preparation for the “first” coming of Christ sometime in the middle ages.

Since that time, advent has been adapted and modified to suit the process we know today, spanning the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.

What are advent calendars?

We all know advent calendars well by now – 24 numbered doors (sometimes 25), one door opened per day to reveal a picture, some chocolate or indeed any number of things today. Their origins date back to early 19th century Germany, where advent calendars started life as chalk marks drawn on doors to count down to Christmas day.

Over that time, the calendars have changed enormously. From chalk markers to handmade wooden calendars, from wooden calendars to picture printed ones and from picture printed calendars to the plethora of options we see on shelves today, the advent calendar has evolved much since its first outing.

Why do calendars have chocolate in?

It might not occur to us spoilt lot to expect anything other than a calendar with chocolate in these days, but the first chocolate advent calendar didn’t surface until 1958, and they didn’t become a part of the mainstream until as recently as the 1990s.

Why chocolate? Well, the addition of chocolate appears to be a simple extension of the already evolving calendar, just as printed pictures were before it, and now all sorts of wacky content ideas are that have followed it. These days, they’re a huge money spinner, too, and the injection of chocolate calendars into the mainstream in the 1990s was no doubt fuelled by commercial ambition.

So, next time you enjoy your advent calendar and whatever lies inside it, you’ll know a bit more about why you’re doing what you’re doing and enjoying what you’re enjoying. With advent calendars as popular as ever and the concept still evolving, who knows what interesting stuff we’ll see from them in years to come.