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Where do Advent calendars come from?
While most people are very familiar with and practice the lighthearted tradition of Advent calendars, many might be surprised by its relatively recent development as a Christian tradition.
The Advent calendar is a Christian tradition dating back only to the 19th century, making it less than 200 years old. Advent, derived from the Latin word “adventus,” means
coming” or “arrival.”
‘Lacking windows at first, Lang’s design is essentially the same style we have today, though war and a few subsequent alterations would change it slightly.’
The calendar counts down the days until Christmas during the Advent season, which is also the very beginning of the liturgical calendar. The Advent calendar then, in its most basic form, is a method of counting down the days until the coming of Christ on Christmas day.
RELATED: More than a countdown: Do you know the full meaning of Advent?
Photo by AMAURY CORNU/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
Often, in more recent iterations, small treats, gifts, and pictures are placed in the doors of the calendar, the number of which usually range between 22 and 28 days depending on the day that Christmas Day falls on. Because of the possible range, most Advent calendars simply begin on December 1 and end on December 24, Christmas Eve.
Counting down
The Advent calendar has seen quite a few variations in its relatively short-lived existence, though the basic idea has always been the same.
A tradition originating among Lutheran Christians, Advent calendars first involved chalk marks that would be erased as the day approached. This practice helped believers anticipate the coming of Christ.
Originating in and around Munich, Germany, in the 19th century, Advent calendars were used to count down the days until Christmas Day.
Gerhard Lang is widely regarded as the creator of the modern Advent calendar. A partner at the lithographic institute Reichhold & Lang, Gerhard Lang is credited with printing the first Advent calendar in 1908, though some say it was some years later.
Lacking windows at first, Lang’s design is essentially the same style we have today, though war and a few subsequent alterations would change it slightly.
Knock, knock
The small, numbered doors, a staple of contemporary calendars, were introduced in 1920. They sometimes had Bible verses or little pictures behind them.
Lang produced around 30 different calendar designs up until the end of the 1930s, when paper shortages and a national ban on paper calendars forced him to shutter the popular business.
However, Advent calendars made a post-war comeback. Richard Sellmer, the founder of the Sellmer Verlag publishing house, published the first Advent calendar after the Second World War, reviving the tradition.
Eighty years later, Sellmer Verlag still sells Advent calendars.
Coming to America
It is believed that American soldiers brought these calendars back after the war, and the tradition spread to the United States.
According to Britannica, the tradition of chocolate behind the doors was introduced in the 1950s, presumably to keep children engaged.
In America, the Advent calendar’s popularity spread quickly in the post-war era. These days, children and adults alike can enjoy counting down the days until the Lord’s Nativity with a vast array of different calendar designs.
Exorcisms are exploding across America — but nobody wants to admit why
From Michigan to Melbourne, exorcisms are rising — an odd trend in an age when Christianity is supposedly retreating.
Odd, that is, if you accept the official story: that faith has faded, churches have emptied, and modern life has supposedly outgrown such concerns. Yet behind parish doors and rectory walls, priests report the opposite: more calls, cases, and urgency.
Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized.
The demonic, it seems, didn’t get the secular memo.
I began making inquiries recently, speaking with clergy who have dealt with what most people would rather joke about, pathologize, or turn into content. One name surfaced repeatedly: Fr. Michael Shadbolt, a veteran priest who had performed numerous exorcisms and spoke of them with measured calm. I reached out to him for insight. Instead, I received word that he had recently passed away.
Thankfully, there was another source, carrying decades of experience where spiritual and psychological care meet. Fr. Stephen Rossetti, an American Catholic priest and seasoned exorcist, spoke without qualification.
“Yes, requests for exorcisms are on the rise in the U.S. and in other countries as well,” he told me. “There may be many reasons for this, but one obvious one is the decline of the practice of the faith.”
That observation runs counter to the fashionable narrative. The usual explanation for the rise in exorcisms is framed as a paradox: Christianity declines, so belief in demons increases.
But that framing flatters modern assumptions. It treats belief as an all-or-nothing package. Either accept the creed or discard the lot. But human experience has never worked that way.
One doesn’t need to believe in God to believe in evil — it’s everywhere. A loved one consumed by addiction. The husband who revels in beating his wife. The wife who revels in beating her husband. The son who turns on parents with lethal force.
RELATED: Interview with an exorcist: ‘God always takes the first step’
D-Keine/Getty Images
Evil doesn’t depend on belief to function. It advances through repetition, fixation, and the gradual loss of restraint. The language shifts with each generation, but the pattern remains. Every day, roughly 137 women and girls are killed worldwide in acts of femicide. Child sacrifice, usually relegated to ancient Peru or remote civilizations, still occurs in parts of Africa today. In the U.S., one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18.
No vocabulary of Pinkertonian progress dissolves these facts. Calling evil “trauma” or “dysfunction” may describe the damage left behind, but it doesn’t confront the force itself. Such language manages outcomes while leaving causes untouched.
The modern world prefers to believe that evil is a misunderstanding, a system failure, or a lack of education. History suggests otherwise. Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized. It thrives where it is renamed, rationalized, or treated as an embarrassing superstition.
Fr. Rossetti put it plainly, “Increasingly people are not protected by faith, and many are involved in occult practices, which are a clear opening to the demonic.”
That point is crucial. Militant atheism is seldom the starting point. The entry point is engagement with practices the Church has long warned against.
“We have a number of cases of people who drifted away from the faith and then got into the occult,” Rossetti explained. “After a few years, they found themselves afflicted by evil spirits.”
The remedy is clear. “The first thing we do is have them go to confession, start practicing the faith, and live a virtuous life,” he said. “All sin is an opening to evil in some way, and the worse the sins, the greater the opening.”
It is precisely for this reason, Rossetti continued, “that exorcisms are very effective.” However, he stressed, there’s no wand, no instant result. “Sometimes the process takes time. It is typically not one and done,” Rossetti said. After years of spell-casting, curse-making, and demon worship — often misidentified as “self-discovery” or “ancient wisdom” — it can take far longer to undo the damage.
He was explicit about the timeline. “It typically takes three to five years of exorcisms to liberate the person.” The process, he added, is one of conversion and purification.
“An exorcism is not magic,” he said.
The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.
What we are witnessing, then, is not the complete disappearance of belief but its fragmentation. Christianity retreats institutionally while belief itself goes feral. Old anchors are cut loose. New fixations rush in. The vacuum does not remain empty.
Look around. Astrology, once harmless nonsense, has become a personal operating system. It graduated from brainless fun to life-management software, complete with a $3 billion price tag. Tarot cards are sold as “self-care.” Witchcraft is rebranded as empowerment, paganism as wellness. Social media is saturated with spiritual freelancers promising protection, manifestation, and power — usually bundled with a payment link.
None of this is neutral, and none of it is consequence-free. Doors opened casually tend to stay open.
This is where the supposed paradox dissolves. Christianity isn’t retreating because belief vanished, but because belief lost its footing. Structure recedes, so superstition rises. When doctrine disappears, disorder follows. There is no neutrality — only exposure.
For those skeptical because of Hollywood portrayals, exorcism is not a medieval curiosity revived for effect, but a practical response to persistent realities. The Church isn’t inventing demons to stay relevant. Rather, it is reacting to what it actually sees — a culture defined by isolation, instability, and constant immersion in content that destroys self-control and sanity.
Fr. Rossetti was clear on the final point, one that many increasingly resist.
“It is critical to understand that Jesus is Lord and not Satan,” he said. “The big mistake people make today is thinking that Satan is so very powerful. He is not.”
Compared to Christ, “Satan is dust.” He has no authority unless it is surrendered.
Christian theology has never been ambiguous on this point. Satan is not a rival god, not an equal force locked in cosmic balance. He is a created being who rebelled, fell, and was expelled. His power is parasitic rather than inherent. He doesn’t rule a kingdom by right, but lurks in territory abandoned through disobedience and pride.
The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.
That, it seems, is the warning embedded in the rise of exorcisms. Not that evil has grown stronger, but that we have grown careless. We treated the spiritual realm as a curiosity, then a hobby, then a marketplace — and acted surprised when something followed us home.
Fr. Rossetti put it without hesitation: “Jesus is Lord and has smashed Satan’s kingdom.” The tragedy is that many live as though He hasn’t.
Liberals in nuclear meltdown mode after 2026 ‘Color of the Year’ is announced
Liberals across the nation are in full tantrum mode after a shade of white was declared 2026’s top hue.
On December 4, Pantone LLC — which is considered the global authority on color standardization — announced “Cloud Dancer,” described as a “billowy white imbued with serenity,” as its 2026 Color of the Year.
“Similar to a blank canvas, Cloud Dancer signifies our desire for a fresh start. … An airy white hue, PANTONE 11-4201 Cloud Dancer opens up space for creativity, allowing our imagination to drift so that new insights and bold ideas can emerge and take shape,” wrote Pantone Vice President Laurie Pressman.
Pantone Executive Director Leatrice Eiseman echoed the VP’s words: “The cacophony that surrounds us has become overwhelming, making it harder to hear the voices of our inner selves. A conscious statement of simplification, Cloud Dancer enhances our focus, providing release from the distraction of external influences.”
Despite these rationales and Pressman’s statement that skin color “did not factor into” Pantone’s selection, furious liberals are accusing the company of being tone-deaf and racist.
Allie Beth Stuckey dives into the hilariously absurd reactions of several unhinged lefties.
X user @svviftlet tweeted:
In another social media video, two girls denounced Pantone’s Color of the Year, claiming it gives “Sydney Sweeney has good genes vibes.”
Back in July, Sweeney was lambasted for starring in an American Eagle denim commercial using the double entendre that Sydney Sweeney has good jeans/genes.
“You’re not allowed to say if you have blonde hair and blue eyes that you have good genes. … She clearly does have good genes. She’s beautiful,” scoffs Allie, “but if you’re a white person, you can’t say that.”
In another video, Feng Shui expert Katie Rogers literally set her Pantone color swatches on fire:
Another Instagram reel features influencer Charlotte Palermino, who ironically filmed her video in an off-white sweater in front of white-colored walls, whining, “It’s giving conservative.”
“It’s literally just a color, okay? It’s an inanimate color,” says Allie, “and the subliminal message is far more offensive than any supposed message that Pantone is communicating.”
The message these social media users are hammering is that “it’s not okay to be white. … You need to be ashamed of that, that white — having white skin — symbolizes something bad, that we need to reject the color of our skin.”
“In this age of self-confidence and self-love, it’s only white people who have to hate themselves or associate their skin color with the collective sins of people who lived elsewhere at a different time? No,” Allie says.
She encourages everyone, but especially Christians, to reject this social justice nonsense. “It’s completely unbiblical. That is not just. Justice is impartial. Justice is individual. Justice is direct. You don’t carry the sins of someone who kind of looked like you,” she says.
To see the videos and hear more of Allie’s commentary, watch the video above.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
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