- When it is kept
- December 1 to 24
- Where it fits in the year
- Advent
Long before there were printed calendars, German families counted the days. Children rubbed out one chalk line each day of December. Catholic homes put one piece of straw in a manger each day.1,2 In 1851 a Protestant family is said to have hung 24 pictures on the wall, probably the first homemade calendar.1
The first printed calendar is credited to Gerhard Lang of the Munich printing firm Reichhold and Lang. It was called "Im Lande des Christkinds", "In the Land of the Christ Child". It had 24 little verses and 24 small pictures to cut out and glue in.3,1 Sources give 1903 for this calendar, and some give 1908.1,4 It had no doors. Calendars with doors to open became common after 1920.1
The printers stopped almost all Christian-themed printing during the war. The first licence afterward went to Richard Sellmer in Stuttgart in December 1945, and his first calendar came out in 1946.1 Calendars with chocolate behind the doors date from 1958.1
In the Bible
While they were there, the day had come for her to give birth. She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2:6-7
The calendar is not in the Bible. It counts the days to the birth of Jesus, which Luke tells in these verses.