German Christmas Traits
All around the world humans are surrounded by people for different cultures. All of these have their own traits or traditions that they celebrate for certain time periods, holidays, birthdays etc. For instance coming from a family that is german on one side and the other Mexican, during christmas time my Mexican side of the family always makes things like tamales or Pozole while my german side makes hundreds of Lebkuchen cookies for everyone to eat during christmas time. Those are just a couple of the hundreds of the traits that you can find in those two cultures. One specific trait that sticks out to me is on my german side and like the examples I gave it has to do with christmas. Around thanksgiving time when all the kids in the family are together for as long as I can remember my german grandmas gives us an advent calendar in preparation for the holidays.
The Advent calendar is a German Christmas tradition that originally started in the nineteenth century. People would light candles or mark chalk lines on the wall counting down the last twenty five days to christmas. The first printed calendar ever was made by Gared Lang in Germany, that was originally designed to get children to be involved with this tradition as well. His had candies on it and leading up to Christmas each day he got to take one off and the idea eventually spread all over but not till later. Advent calendars are made of cardboard and contain twenty four windows that are all closed, one of them get to be opened on each day leading up to Christmas. After opening each window there was a Christmas scene or an interesting picture that usually has to do with the holidays. Nowadays the calendars are different and have been modified for popular demand. The calendars may have chocolate and candy behind each window, and sometimes even small toys if the kids are lucky. This is a tradition that has been carried on not only through...