Advent wreath
Based on Wikipedia: Advent wreath
A Circle of Light in the Darkest Month
In 1839, in a Hamburg mission school for poor children, a Lutheran pastor named Johann Hinrich Wichern faced a problem that any parent or teacher would recognize instantly. Every single day during December, the children would ask him the same question: "Is it Christmas yet?"
His solution was brilliantly simple. He took an old wooden cartwheel, mounted twenty-eight candles on it—twenty-four small red ones and four large white ones—and hung it from the ceiling. Each weekday, one small candle would be lit. Each Sunday, one of the large white candles would join the growing constellation of flames. The children could literally see Christmas approaching, one flickering light at a time.
That improvised creation would eventually transform into one of the most recognizable symbols of the Christmas season: the Advent wreath.
What Exactly Is an Advent Wreath?
At its most basic, an Advent wreath is a circular arrangement of evergreen branches holding candles—typically four, though sometimes five. The wreath marks the passage of Advent, the four-week period in Western Christianity that leads up to Christmas Day.
The ritual is straightforward. On the first Sunday of Advent—which falls between late November and early December, depending on the year—one candle is lit, often accompanied by prayers or Scripture readings. The following Sunday, two candles burn. Then three. By the fourth Sunday, all four flames dance together. If the wreath includes a fifth candle in the center, that one—called the Christ candle—is lit on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day itself.
Simple enough. But like most simple rituals, there are layers of meaning beneath the surface.
The Symbolism Hidden in Plain Sight
Nothing about the Advent wreath is accidental.
The circular shape represents eternity—a line with no beginning and no end, echoing the Christian concept of God's infinite love. The evergreen branches, which stay green even in the dead of winter, symbolize eternal life and hope in the midst of darkness. And the candles themselves represent light entering the world—specifically, the light that Christians believe arrived with Jesus's birth.
Each of the four outer candles carries its own meaning: hope, peace, joy, and love. These aren't arbitrary virtues plucked from a hat. They trace a kind of emotional journey through the Advent season, building week by week toward the celebration of Christmas.
But there's another layer of symbolism that operates on a different track entirely. In this interpretation, the first candle is called the Prophecy candle or Messiah candle, representing the Jewish prophets who foretold the coming of a savior. The second is the Bethlehem candle, honoring the journey of Joseph and Mary to the town where Jesus would be born. The third represents the shepherds who, according to the Gospel of Luke, were the first to hear of the birth. And the fourth is the Angel's candle, symbolizing the heavenly messenger who announced the news.
So depending on your tradition, you might be lighting hope one week and prophecy the next—or both at the same time.
A Quick Word About Colors
If you've seen Advent wreaths in churches, you've probably noticed that the candles often aren't all the same color. This connects to something called the liturgical calendar—a system that many Christian churches use to mark different seasons and occasions throughout the year, each associated with specific colors.
For Advent, the traditional color is violet or purple, which signifies penitence and preparation. Three of the four candles are typically this color. But the third candle is often rose or pink. Why? Because the third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin word meaning "rejoice." It marks a brief pause in the penitential mood—a reminder that the wait is almost over. The pink candle is like a deep breath of anticipation before the final stretch.
Some churches use blue instead of purple, which carries a slightly different emphasis—hopefulness rather than penitence. And in parts of the United Kingdom, you'll find Advent wreaths with four red candles, which simply aligns with the traditional colors of Christmas decorations. Even Pope Benedict XVI received an Advent wreath with red candles.
The colors matter to some people and not at all to others. What matters more is the light.
From a Hamburg Orphanage to the World
Wichern's original creation was quite different from the wreaths we know today. Twenty-eight candles is a lot of candles. But the idea caught on among German Protestants, and as it spread, it evolved. The cartwheel shrank to a tabletop wreath. The twenty-four daily candles disappeared, leaving only the four Sunday candles—much more practical for home use.
For nearly a century, the Advent wreath remained primarily a Protestant tradition, specifically a Lutheran one. Then, in the 1920s, Roman Catholics in Germany began adopting the custom. By the 1930s, it had crossed the Atlantic to North America.
This timeline is more recent than many people assume. Research by Mary Jane Haemig of Luther Seminary in Minnesota indicates that even German Lutheran immigrants to the United States weren't lighting Advent wreaths until the 1930s. The tradition feels ancient, but it's younger than the telephone.
When Blue Peter Made It British
The Advent wreath has its own origin story in Britain, and it involves something distinctly un-churchly: a children's television program.
Blue Peter, which has been airing on the BBC since 1958, is famous for its "makes"—craft projects that young viewers could recreate at home with household materials. In 1964, the show featured an Advent crown made from wire coat hangers and tinsel. The segment became so popular that it was repeated every year, introducing an entire generation of British children to a tradition that most of their parents had never encountered.
For many people in the broadly Anglican audience, Blue Peter was their first exposure to the Advent wreath. The version they learned to make was homespun and a bit ramshackle—very different from the solemn church versions with their liturgically correct purple and pink candles. In later years, the show replaced the candles with baubles due to fire safety concerns, which tells you something about how many children were actually attempting to build these things at home.
The Eastern Orthodox Variation
If you're familiar with Eastern Orthodox Christianity—the tradition practiced in Greece, Russia, and other countries—you might know that their liturgical calendar doesn't always match up with Western churches. Christmas is often celebrated on January 7th rather than December 25th, and the preparatory season before Christmas is longer: forty days instead of four weeks.
Some Eastern Orthodox families have adapted the Advent wreath to fit their calendar, creating versions with six candles instead of four. Each candle represents a different week of preparation and carries its own symbolic meaning: green for faith, blue for hope, gold for love, white for peace, purple for repentance, and red for communion.
It's a reminder that traditions are living things. They migrate across borders and denominations, changing shape as they go.
What Advent Actually Was (Before It Became Christmas Shopping Season)
Here's something that might surprise you. In medieval Christianity, Advent wasn't primarily about getting ready for Christmas as a celebration of Jesus's birth. It was about the Second Coming—the belief that Christ would return at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.
Advent was a penitential season, a time of fasting and sober reflection, much like Lent is before Easter. People's thoughts were directed toward the expected return of Christ and the need to be spiritually prepared for that moment. The mood was less "jingle bells" and more "examine your conscience."
Over centuries, this emphasis shifted. Advent gradually became more associated with anticipating the Christmas celebration—the First Coming rather than the Second. The fasting requirements relaxed. The penitential tone softened. And by the twentieth century, for many people in the Western world, Advent had become synonymous with the countdown to Christmas morning.
The Advent wreath, in this context, can serve as a small anchor to the older meaning. The slow progression of candles, lit one by one over four weeks, resists the commercial pressure to skip straight to the finale. It insists on waiting, on letting time unfold at its own pace.
The Opposite of an Advent Wreath
To understand what makes the Advent wreath distinctive, it helps to think about what it's not.
It's not an Advent calendar, though both serve the purpose of marking time until Christmas. Advent calendars typically have a door or window for each day of December leading up to Christmas, often containing chocolates or small gifts. They emphasize daily anticipation and often skew toward children and candy.
The Advent wreath, by contrast, operates on a weekly rhythm and centers on a ritual moment—the lighting of a flame—rather than the opening of a door. There's no prize inside. The "gift" is the light itself and whatever meaning you bring to it.
It's also not a Christmas decoration in the usual sense, though it often gets lumped in with them. Christmas decorations appear to celebrate; the Advent wreath appears to wait. Its purpose is preparation, not festivity.
A Tradition for the Exhausted
There's something appealingly low-stakes about the Advent wreath. You don't need to be a theologian to light a candle. You don't need special equipment—a few candles, some greenery, and a plate will do in a pinch. The ritual takes about thirty seconds, or as long as you want it to take.
For people who find the holiday season overwhelming—the shopping, the parties, the relentless pressure to manufacture merriment—the Advent wreath offers a quiet alternative. Light a candle. Sit in the darkness for a moment. Watch the flame.
That's it. That's the whole practice.
Wichern invented his wheel of candles to help restless children visualize the passage of time. Nearly two centuries later, the Advent wreath still performs that function—not just for children, but for anyone who needs a moment of stillness in the darkest month of the year.
Making One Yourself
If you want to create an Advent wreath, you have options ranging from elaborate to extremely simple.
The traditional approach involves actual evergreen branches—pine, fir, cedar, holly—arranged in a circle with four candle holders spaced evenly around the ring. If you care about liturgical colors, three candles should be purple (or violet or blue) and one should be pink. The pink one goes in the third position, to be lit on the third Sunday. If you want a Christ candle in the center, it should be white.
But here's a secret: none of that is required. Four candles of any color, arranged in any circular fashion, will accomplish the essential purpose. A wreath form from a craft store works. So does a dinner plate with candles arranged on it. So does the Blue Peter version made from bent coat hangers and tinsel, if you're feeling nostalgic for 1964.
What matters is the ritual, not the object. One candle the first week. Two the second. Three the third. Four the fourth. Light entering the darkness, week by week, until Christmas arrives.
The Light Increases
There's a beautiful structural logic to the Advent wreath that becomes more apparent the longer you sit with it.
Advent falls in the darkest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The days are short. The nights are long. In Hamburg, where Wichern invented his wheel of candles, December daylight lasts barely seven hours. In more northern latitudes, it's even less.
Against this backdrop of gathering darkness, the Advent wreath offers a counter-narrative. Each week, there is more light. One flame becomes two becomes three becomes four. The light increases even as the natural world grows darker.
This is, of course, the whole point—the theological claim embedded in the ritual. Into the darkness comes light. Into the waiting comes arrival. Into the winter comes the promise of returning warmth.
Whether you take that claim literally or metaphorically or not at all, the image retains its power. Watching a flame in a dark room is one of the oldest human experiences. The Advent wreath simply gives that experience a shape and a rhythm, a reason to return to it week after week as December unfolds.
And then, on Christmas, you blow the candles out—and start waiting for next year.