Azvenzkranzkerzenglanz

[pne]

Stella looked for an Advent wreath the other day, but couldn't find one. So she decided to make her own.

Here's the result:

She said that she estimates a wreath that size with those decorations would cost about €20 in a shop; she paid about €5 for the raw materials.

So yay! We have an Advent wreath again this year.

(For those of you who are not familiar with Advent wreaths: they're a German(?) custom, whereby one candle is lit on the first Sunday in Advent (the four weeks leading up to Christmas), two candles on the second Sunday (i.e. the first one plus another, new one), three on the third, and four on the fourth. Symbolising, I suppose, how things get lighter and lighter leading up to the coming into the world of the Light Himself, or something like that. Or celebrating the upcoming solstice and the fact that days will soon start getting longer again, for all I know. At any rate, I think it's a nice tradition.)

Comments

[pne.livejournal.com]

Interesting, I'd never heard of that colour tradition.

Incidentally, I read an article the other day in a newspaper saying that the candles are to be lit in a counter-clockwise direction -- the first I had ever heard of such a mandate. In the tradition you know, is there a preferred/prescribed direction you light the candles in?

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

In my mom's Lutheran church (obviously a lot of German borrowing there) we had these, but not the colors that crschmidt mentioned - I remember them just being white like in your pictures. I think they were lit clockwise but I can't really remember. Certainly, nobody explicitly pointed out any significance one way or the other about direction.

[crschmidt.livejournal.com]

Instinctively, I believe I would light clockwise, and I don't have a memory of any specific tradition in that regard... but it's been a number of years since I was around a Catholic house during Advent.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Really? I'm sure I've discussed it in my journal since that's the tradition I was raised with as well. Last night at a party, someone asked what the RCC term was for the pink candle/vestment Sunday. "Gaudete ["rejoice y'all!"] Sunday" according to former vestment-wearer monshu.