Advent Calendars in Germany, France, the UK and the US: What Opens When

Where an advent calendar starts, and what sits beside it, changes from country to country: a town hall opened window by window, shoes outside the door, a gift evening, a television series. This page goes through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, the UK, the US, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries, with the source behind each date. The reason for 24 doors, and the 2026 and 2027 dates of the first Sunday of Advent, are on why advent calendars have 24 doors; the disputed dates of the first printed calendar are on who invented the advent calendar.

That matters if the calendar is going abroad. The free maker on this site has 24 doors and goes out as one link, and a person in another country may open door 5 or door 6 with a custom of their own attached.

At a glance

Here is the whole map first, country by country, before the detail.

Germany

Germany is where the sources place the origin: Protestant homes in the 19th century, then the printed calendars of the 1900s, whose dates are in the history article linked above. For the present day, the sources cited here turn to events and money. The Sparkasse’s editorial team, in a text dated November 27, 2025, says advent calendars bring in more than 100 million euros a year in Germany according to retail research, and that about 60 percent of Germans buy at least one, according to the research firm POSpulse.

Gengenbach. In Baden-Württemberg the town hall has hosted an advent calendar since 1996. A dpa report of December 1, 2025 says the town calls it the world’s largest advent calendar house, with 24 windows, one opened each evening at 18:00, and about 120,000 visitors a year according to the town; the illustrator for the third year was Olaf Hajek, and earlier years included Marc Chagall and Andy Warhol. A festival listing updated on May 22, 2026 gives the 2026 run as November 27 to December 23. The two pages do not say which evening opens the first window in 2026.

Sources disagree “World’s largest” is claimed by Gengenbach through the town and by Forchheim in Bavaria, where the first door opened on December 1, 1996 in front of the town hall and the 1998 Guinness Book of Records listed it as the world’s largest. The infranken.de report of November 26, 2020 puts it dryly: “Wer also nun der größte ist, wird wohl auch weiterhin ein Streitthema bleiben”, who is now the largest will probably remain a matter of dispute.

Nuremberg. The city’s own press text of November 24, 2025 says the Christkind opens the Christkindlesmarkt on the Friday before the first Advent, which was November 28, 2025, with a prologue from the Frauenkirche gallery at 17:30; the market is first mentioned in writing in 1678, was not held during the Second World War and was revived in 1948. For 2026 the rule gives Friday, November 27, from Smart-Rechner’s date of November 29 for the first Sunday of Advent; that is arithmetic, not an announced date.

Nikolaus. Planet Wissen says December 6 is Nikolaus Day, especially important in Germany and the Netherlands. Children put cleaned shoes outside the door and find apples, nuts and sweets.

Austria

Österreich Werbung, the national tourist board, says Advent lasts 22 to 28 days and always includes four Sundays, and that the first door of the advent calendar opens on December 1. The same page has the season’s other customs: the wreath first appears in Germany in 1839, and in Lower Austria it is traditionally bound with three violet candles and one pink. Barbara branches are cut on December 4 in Carinthia, and Krampus runs around December 6.

Switzerland

Expatica’s guide, last updated March 30, 2026, says store-bought or homemade advent calendars are common. In smaller towns an Adventsfenster is a window calendar: 24 households each decorate a window and one is revealed each evening from December 1 to 24. Samichlaus visits on December 6 with a large bag of chocolates, peanuts and mandarins, accompanied by Schmutzli. The Swiss National Museum in Zurich treated old calendars as collection objects in 2021, with a guided tour called “Zauber der Adventskalender” on December 9, 2021, led by a collector whose collection holds hundreds of calendars from the earliest editions to the 1970s.

France

The Routard guide to Alsace paints the morning scene: “Chaque matin du 1er au 24 décembre, les enfants ouvrent une petite fenêtre de leur calendrier de l’Avent”, every morning from December 1 to 24 children open a small window, with a small picture or a little chocolate behind it. Daily Geek Show says the tradition was mostly popular in Germany and Alsace and spread late in the rest of France. Futura-Sciences gives 1958 for chocolates in the calendar, in an article about the French calendar.

Saint Nicolas falls on December 6. Sortiraparis says he is celebrated mainly in eastern France, in Alsace, Lorraine, Flanders and Franche-Comté; on the night of December 5 to 6 he leaves chocolates, dried fruit and gingerbread, and Père Fouettard leaves coal; men dressed as Saint Nicholas, with a donkey, visit schools in Lorraine and Alsace on December 6. Routard names Hans Trapp, also called Père Fouettard, as the villain of the visit.

The United Kingdom

Martin Johnes, a historian of British Christmas, traces the arrival in a post of December 1, 2020. Early calendars were gifts from Germany or Scandinavia or came with immigrants; after the Second World War some were sent as tokens of friendship; by 1956 calendars were commercially produced and advertised, citing a Bucks Examiner advertisement of November 16, 1956. Through the 1980s the standard British calendar was a cardboard sheet of festive images with the nativity on the 24th, and chocolate became the norm in the 1990s; Cadbury’s first chocolate calendar was 1971 and continuous production began in 1993.

On the shopping side, GlobalData, on November 15, 2018, reported that 55.6 percent of surveyed UK consumers planned to buy at least one advent calendar, and that 73.6 percent of those intended a chocolate one. These are survey intentions, not sales. Cosmetics Business reported on January 12, 2017 that Marks & Spencer sold 289,000 beauty advent calendars in the 13 weeks to December 31, 2016.

The United States

Stripes Europe says a photograph of President Eisenhower’s grandchildren with an advent calendar ran in Newsweek in December 1953; Mental Floss says a photo of Eisenhower opening one with his grandchildren ran in several national newspapers, and that he is “often credited for the proliferation of the Advent calendar tradition in the United States”. Stripes also says the Stuttgart publisher Sellmer took its calendar to a trade fair in Frankfurt in 1946 to look for American buyers.

LA Magazine reported on November 3, 2017 that Trader Joe’s 99-cent chocolate advent calendars were back in stock. For Australia, SBS says the earliest advertisements the food historian Dr Madeline Shanahan found date from the 1950s.

The Netherlands

ACCESS NL says the main event is the evening of December 5, Pakjesavond, “St Nicholas Eve, gift evening”, with gifts presented theatrically and often with humorous poems; Sinterklaas arrives by steamboat from Spain in mid-November. Planet Wissen also puts the Dutch Paketabend on December 5. Germany fills shoes on the night to December 6, and neither depends on the 24 doors.

The Nordic countries

Sweden. SVT says: “Julkalendern har varit en tradition på SVT sedan 1960”, and lists “Titteliture” as the first. The Local says SVT was then Sweden’s only channel, and that the first programme aired on both SVT and Sveriges Radio, with far more people tuning in to the radio version. Lucia is on December 13, according to Linköping University, which says the Julian calendar put the longest night between December 12 and 13 until the Gregorian calendar arrived in Sweden in 1753, and that the custom became popular with the broader public after a Lucia competition in 1927.

Denmark. DR says its first TV julekalender ran in 1962 after Sweden’s start, proposed by Mogens Winkler. Cardboard calendars were printed alongside it with profits for development aid, and in 1973 a rule banned Christmas motifs on the cardboard calendar after other producers complained.

Norway. Store norske leksikon says “Jul i Skomakergata” on NRK in 1979 was the first TV julekalender: “Jul i Skomakergata var den første julekalenderen på TV”. Its entry on the advent calendar says Norway’s first printed julekalender was printed in 1947, and that adult calendars often contain food, drink, perfume or cosmetics.

What a calendar sent between two countries should get right

Four small decisions make a calendar feel written for the person opening it.

1. Choose the start day on purpose. December 1 is the count in the Austrian, Swiss and Alsatian pages; the first Sunday of Advent is November 29, 2026; Gengenbach’s listed run starts on November 27. Tell the recipient which one door 1 follows.
2. Mind the date, not the hour. The maker’s home page says a door opens on its date and does not state the hour. For someone several time zones away, agree on the date in writing.
3. Put the local date on its door. Door 5 is the Dutch gift evening, door 6 is Nikolaus in Germany, Samichlaus in Switzerland and Saint Nicolas in eastern France, with Krampus around that date in Austria, and door 13 is Lucia for a Swedish recipient.
4. Do not assume the contents. Chocolate is the norm in the UK from the 1990s; an Alsatian window holds a small picture or a little chocolate. A door is a message or a picture, and nothing in the sources asks for more.

In the tool The maker has 24 doors, each opening on its date, and the finished calendar goes out as one link by WhatsApp, email or social media. Doors hold text, an image, a YouTube video, a GIF or a link, so a door 6 can say what Nikolaus brought in the sender’s town.

Put it in a calendar

The template for a friend abroad is a finished 24-door calendar built for this case, which you copy and change. Or start from an empty one: Create your calendar, pick a background, and decide before door 1 which December date it follows.

Frequently Asked Questions

When do you open the first door of an advent calendar?

On December 1 in the sources for Austria, Switzerland and Alsace. Gengenbach’s town-hall calendar is listed from November 27, 2026, and the first Sunday of Advent is November 29, 2026.

When is the first Sunday of Advent in 2026?

Sunday, November 29, 2026, and Sunday, November 28, 2027, according to Smart-Rechner.

What is an Adventsfenster?

A window calendar in smaller Swiss towns: 24 households each decorate a window and one is revealed each evening from December 1 to 24.

Which town has the world's largest advent calendar?

Two claim it. Gengenbach calls its town hall the world’s largest advent calendar house; Forchheim says the 1998 Guinness Book of Records listed it as the largest.

When are Nikolaus and Sinterklaas?

Nikolaus on December 6, with shoes outside the door. In the Netherlands the gift evening is December 5. In eastern France Saint Nicolas visits on the night of December 5 to 6.

Do the French have advent calendars?

Yes. The Routard guide to Alsace describes children opening a small window each morning from December 1 to 24. Daily Geek Show says the habit spread late in France outside Alsace.

When did advent calendars come to the UK and the US?

In the UK, early ones were gifts from Germany or Scandinavia, and by 1956 they were commercially produced and advertised. In the US, a photograph of December 1953 is credited with the spread.

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