!!!Advent

Advent: religious time of preparation for the celebration of the birth 
of Christ (Lat. adventus = arrival); beginning of the church year with 
the 4 Sundays prior to Christmas. Strictly religious customs include 
the Rorate-Aemter (high masses named after the song beginning "Rorate 
coeli ..." = Open Heaven to the just ...), morning masses held on work 
days as votive masses for the Virgin Mary, until December 16 
(Engelamt, high mass on first Sunday of Advent). Frauentragen 
(carrying the Virgin Mary) was especially widespread in Salzburg and 
the Tyrol and involved worshipping and carrying an image of Mary from 
house to house. In Upper Styria the object of worship was a picture of 
St. Joseph (Joseftragen). In the Herbergsuchen (searching for shelter) 
custom, young people dressed as Mary and Joseph walk through the 
village and ask for donations to the poor. In Steyr the  Steyrer 
Kripperl (Manger of Steyr), a mechanical Baroque manger display, helps 
to uphold the memory of the Adventspiele (Advent plays) ( Lay Theatre, 
popular plays). Advent singing is esp. known from the Salzburg Advent 
celebrations as established by T. Reiser und K. H.  Waggerl and 
made into an increasingly musical and artistic event ("Gang durch den 
Advent" in the Grosses Festspielhaus). The Advent singers 
("Ankloeckler") in Oberndorf (province of Salzburg), re-established by 
a local teacher in 1925, are connected to the older tradition of 
Kloeckeln, a regional custom in Salzburg and Carinthia in which local 
boys go from house to house on the Thursdays before Christmas. A 
widespread tradition is that of the Advent wreath, a custom that was 
invented by a Protestant theologist and director of an educational 
institution in Hamburg in 1839 and spread to the Catholic south mainly 
through the German Youth Movement after World War I. The first printed 
Advent calendar appeared in 1903 in Munich and was made popular above 
all by the children's periodical "Wunderwelt" after World War II. The 
institutions of the  Christkindlmarkt (Christmas market) and Advent 
market reflect the more commercial aspect of Advent as seen in the 
decoration of stores and shopping streets as well as the introduction 
of the 4 "shopping Saturdays" (longer store business hours) before 
Christmas; in 1960/1961 they replaced the 3rd and 4th Advent Sundays 
("Silver and Golden Sunday"), which had been the main shopping days 
(stores open all day). Advent and Christmas bazaars held in many 
schools and parishes mostly serve charitable purposes.

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Religious and secular customs and dates (without an intrinsic relation 
to ADVENT) in this period are  Barbara, (name day of St. Barbara) 
Lucia,  Saint Nicholas Day Traditions,  Lostage,  Perchten and  
Rauhnaechte.

!Further reading
R. Wolfram, Das Ankloeckeln im Salzburgischen, in: 
Mitteilg. der Gesellschaft fuer Salzburg. Landeskunde 95, 1955; idem, 
Herbergsuchen (Frauentragen), in: Oesterr. Volkskundeatlas, 
4%%sup th/%  instalment, 1971; H. Bausinger, Adventskranz, 1977.


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