German traditions

This article is available to Members of The Local. Read more articles for Members here. Like its cousin the adventsljusstake (Advent candelabra), the Swedish adventsstjärna (Advent star) that brightens windows during the Christmas season was adapted from a German tradition. Also like the Advent candelabra, which was brought to Sweden by Marie Cederschiöld, the Advent star owes its initial introduction in Sweden to a woman. The German Herrnhuter Stern (Moravian star), which typically has 25 or 26 points but can feature anywhere from 20 to 110, dates back to the mid-1800s. Representative of the Star of Bethlehem, the star originated under the auspices of the Moravian Church, a Protestant denomination of Christianity based in the German town of Herrnhut. By the late-1800s, the stars were being produced and sold in a Herrnhut bookstore and, later, a factory. Born in Herrnhut in 1886, Julia Aurelius would have grown up with the stars decorating the windows of her family … [Read more...] about #SwedishChristmas: The tradition with a surprising connection to H&M

Swedes may not have invented the concept of the Advent light, but they have spent more than a century adapting and reinventing it, making the Swedish version, known as adventsljusstakar (Advent candelabra), a distinctively Swedish Christmas tradition. The earliest Advent light tradition, which consisted of lighting candles placed within a wreath of evergreen branches to count down the days until the feast of Christmas, originated in Lutheran Germany, possibly as early as the 1500s.  In 1839, the first modern German Advent wreath consisted of 20 small red candles, which were lit on weekdays, and four large white candles lit each Sunday of Advent. Though this was eventually simplified to just the four white candles, the tradition first came to Sweden as an adaptation of the more elaborate format. After spending a year studying nursing in Germany, Marie Cederschiöld returned to Sweden in 1851 to take her place as the first director of Stockholm's Diakonissanstalten (Christian … [Read more...] about #SwedishChristmas: How a German Christmas tradition became distinctively Swedish