By Rafe Calder
The first Advent wreath was not green, and it was not small. It was a wooden wheel about the size of a cartwheel, and it hung in a prayer hall.
The man and the house
Three German sources agree on the basics. The Protestant theologian Johann Hinrich Wichern lit the first wreath on the first Sunday of Advent in 1839, at the Rauhes Haus in Hamburg-Horn. The evangelisch.de article, from the Protestant church’s media portal, says he founded the Rauhes Haus in 1833 in a farmhouse, for poor children from Hamburg’s slum districts, and that he was 31 in 1839. The Hamburg tourism magazine gives his birth date as 21 April 1808. The Sonntagsblatt, a church weekly, says the wreath let the children see Christmas coming.
That is the reason for the design. A wreath that counts days is a calendar, and a calendar is for children.
What hung from the ceiling
All three describe a wooden wheel. They then disagree on the details, and the disagreement is worth reading closely.
The church portal says the original had no fir greenery, four white candles for the Sundays and one small red candle for each weekday before Christmas, with one more lit each day until every candle burned on Christmas Eve. The Hamburg magazine says red candles marked ordinary days and white ones the Advent Sundays, with the number of red candles running from 18 to 24 depending on the date of the first Advent. It does not say how many white ones there were. The church weekly gives four large white candles and 18 to 24 small red ones too, but adds white ribbons and pine cones to the original.
So: green or not green? The portal says no fir. The weekly says ribbons and cones. Neither claim comes with a document, and we do not resolve them.
Where the fir came in
The sources give two steps. The Sonntagsblatt says that in 1851 the prayer hall walls were first decorated with fir branches during Advent, and that in 1860 the wreath itself got fir greenery. The Hamburg magazine and the church portal both give 1860 for fir branches and white ribbons on the wreath. On 1860 the three sources agree. The 1851 date has one source.
From a hall to a table
The Sonntagsblatt says that at the start of the twentieth century the wreath moved into middle-class homes and was made smaller, with the weekday candles dropped. The Hamburg magazine says it was shrunk to four candles so it could fit in homes. The church portal says the wreath spread through the wider church along with Wichern’s welfare work, and that the weekday candles were dropped for home use. None of the three gives a date for the spread beyond “the start of the twentieth century”.
One more detail from the portal is worth keeping. It says Protestant churches in Germany use red ribbons and red candles, while Catholic areas, Norway and Sweden often use violet, and that the third Advent candle is pink. That is the portal’s description, and we have not checked it against a second source.
The wreath that still has a weekday candle
The Hamburg magazine says the Rauhes Haus still lights one more candle each day. The church weekly says a gardening company still makes Wichern-style wreaths each year for Rauhes Haus sites and the Hamburg city hall, and gives the Rauhes Haus recommendations for a version at home: a diameter of at least 60 centimetres, red candles that need replacing or shorter burn times because daily use uses them up, and a table rather than the ceiling. The church portal repeats the 60 centimetre figure for a 2009 version, with four white and 22 red candles.
Our reading, and only that: a household that wants a wreath of this kind should treat the Rauhes Haus recommendations as a guide to the design, not as a safety instruction, because we found nothing about fire safety in the three sources as summarised.
Dates in order
- 21 April 1808: Wichern’s birth, according to the Hamburg magazine.
- 1833: Rauhes Haus founded, according to the church portal.
- 1839: first wreath lit on the first Sunday of Advent, in all three.
- 1851: fir on the prayer hall walls, according to the weekly.
- 1860: fir and white ribbons on the wreath, in all three.
- Early twentieth century: smaller home wreaths with four candles, according to the weekly.
Questions a buyer would ask
Is a four-candle wreath the original? No. All three sources describe a larger wheel with many more candles.
Is it always green? Not at first, according to the church portal. The sources date the fir to 1860.
What do the colours mean? Only the church portal speaks to this, and we leave it as its claim.
What kind of sources these are
A church media portal, a city tourism magazine and a church weekly. They are close to the tradition they describe, and none, as we read them, points to a primary document. The Hamburg magazine’s headline suggests 24 candles at the start, while its body gives 18 to 24 red candles plus white ones, so the original total stays unclear.
What we left out
The portal’s speculation about where Wichern got the idea, the founding date of the house beyond what is stated, and every claim about other countries that the sources do not support. We name no wreath maker, since none of the three does.
Quick answers
Who invented the Advent wreath? According to the church portal, the Hamburg tourism magazine and a church weekly, Johann Hinrich Wichern lit the first one in 1839 at the Rauhes Haus in Hamburg-Horn.
How many candles did the first wreath have? The sources vary. The church portal says four white plus one red per weekday. The Hamburg magazine and weekly give 18 to 24 red candles.
When did fir branches join the wreath? The Hamburg magazine and church portal both say 1860, with white ribbons.
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