advent spiral ideas & themes for celebrating a light-filled advent
“In the deep and dark wood’s heartWhere moans the North Wind cold,You will find a sun-filled caveWhen you walk a spiral road.Shimmering stars will sing aboveTo the crystals that glitter below,While you draw your light from a flame so brightBringing warmth to the sparkling snow.”
‘Adventsong’ by Eugene Schwartz, The Waldorf Book of Poetry
The Grimm’s Advent Spiral is an 8 piece, 24 hole solid natural coloured bass wood spiral. A magical light-filled way to celebrate the approach of Christmas!
We’ve had fun looking at different ways to decorate and theme the advent spiral as there are so many ways to make it personal to your family and it can become a beautiful tradition that can be repeated every advent and added to over the years. You can add a candle or decoration each day in the countdown to Christmas, or move a single candle inwards each day, when you reach the centre Christmas Eve has arrived!
Above we did a winter forest animal theme and decorated 24 little pebbles and stones, adding a new stone on each hole, each day. The Ostheimer Woodland Animals like those found in our Myriad Ostheimer Forest Animal Selection watched by completing the scene and we lit a single Beeswax Candle in an apple in the centre, lighting it each night when we added the daily stone, a lovely mindful moment each day during the busy days leading up to Christmas.
Above we’ve created a more traditional scene; the Ostheimer Mary on the Donkey and Ostheimer Joseph move slowly around the spiral as each new candle is added each day. When they reach the Angel in the middle Christmas Eve will have arrived! We’ve used the Red 100% Pure Beeswax Candles which need the Brass Candle Holders in the spiral.
We had to do a fairy one! Here we have the little felt Ambrosius Flower Fairies looking after the advent spiral, and we took it in turns either adding a precious gemstone or a beeswax candle each day to get closer to the centre and Christmas Day! The fairy friends here include the Holly Fairy, the Poinsettia Fairy, the Snowy Rose Hip Fairy, the Snowdrop Fairy, the Mistletoe Fairy and the Christmas Rose Fairy and the Apple Fairy. You could even do it another way and add a new special fairy each day which could be given as a special advent gift each day to a child. So sweet!
There are also lots of lovely Grimm’s Wooden Decorations made for perfectly fitting in the advent spiral and celebration rings, you could add a different wooden decoration every other day like in the above version. Here you can see the Angel, the Star, the Gnome, and the Raindrop Tower decorations.
Another simple idea if it’s all about ‘how many days until Father Christmas comes?’ is that this sweet little felt Ambrosius Santa Claus or Ambrosius King Winter could lead the addition of candles each day around the spiral until he reaches the centre and Christmas Eve arrives and Santa will be getting on his sleigh.
we’d love to see!
