Christmas: the Advent window, a recent tradition from Switzerland

The most important things in brief

• The custom of advent windows only became established in Switzerland in the 1980s.
• The tradition originally came from Aargau.
• The idea behind it is that people in small villages and towns get to know each other.
• Today, the Advent windows are not only known and loved in Switzerland, but also in parts of Germany, Austria and France.

The world is getting colder and more impersonal, interpersonal contact is playing less and less of an important role today. At least that is the social perception. Especially in the cold season, it would be nice if people drew together a little and paused. A beautiful tradition that brings people together for a few hours a day comes from Aargau.

Distributed from Aargau via Switzerland

As is always the case with traditions, at some point nobody knows where they came from, what they mean and when they started. With the Advent windows, however, it is different, even if the exact date is unclear. However, it is known that the origins of this custom must lie sometime in the 1980s.

This is the result of the work of Dominik Wunderlin, who was curator at the Basel Museum der Kulturen and researched the Swiss Christmas and Advent traditions. This resulted in the book "'s isch Heiligei Wiehnachtszyt". Wunderlin found out that the advent windows must have been created around 1985 in and around Othmarsingen.

The «walk-in advent calendar»

The tradition spread from Aargau, and today it is at least well known throughout Switzerland. But this custom has also spread beyond the country's borders. In parts of Germany, Austria and France, the advent windows are also known today.

But we have not yet answered the third question - the one about the meaning. The intention is to bring people together in a village community during Advent to combat the anonymity that also largely prevails in small communities. But how exactly does the «walk-in advent calendar» work?

What happens at the advent window?

The exact procedure differs from village to village today. But basically it works like this: the 24 households of a village community or a district get together and decorate their windows festively from December 1st to 24th. The whole family helps with this. However, the window artworks are only unveiled on the 24 days of Advent on which it is your turn - but also only after darkness has fallen over the place.

On the occasion of the evening opening, or rather the unveiling, of the respective window with the Advent decorations, the residents gather in front of the window to talk and to cultivate the community. You eat biscuits and toast with a glass of aperitif or a cup of mulled wine. Malicious gossips claim that the Christmas windows were only invented so that there is another reason to be able to drink the aperitif that is popular in Switzerland... A nice custom that not least offers newcomers the opportunity to settle into the community. And for everyone else a great opportunity to make new contacts or revive old, rusty acquaintances.