Brück and Sohn Advent Calendars - European Cities and More - Limited Supplies Available
Brück and Sohn (Printers in Meissen, Germany 1793-2018) celebrate European cities and culture with their exquisite Advent Calendars. After honoring their 225th anniversary in October 2018, the 7th generation, Annette and Helmut Brück, retired, closing their doors. An era has come to an end.
My Growing Traditions has scavenged where we could and replenished our inventory in hopes of being able to make them available to you as long as possible. We do have limited supplies available.
Here we present a few customer favorites -
The Brücks continue to memorialize the history of their company and offer a small museum and postcard archive which are preserved in Meissen and which are open to the public by appointment.
Given our limited supplies we recommend you secure yours now. You can click on the photos and titles above, or click here: to find the entire collection
Now We Can Take a Peek Behind the Windows - Brück und Sohn's Advent Calendars
We have always treasured Brück und Sohn's Advent Calendars for the memories they capture of our travels here and there. We are really pleased to have been able to add an additional touch of folk art to our calendar descriptions. We've always presented a photograph of each Advent Calendar for you to choose from. Now we can show you a small peek into the delightful art behind the windows.
Nuremberg's Christmas Market is renown as the "model" for Christmas Markets all over Europe. Brück und Sohn offers this gorgeous painting of the market in the town center and they have carefully chosen children's toys, a Christmas tree, and a Gingerbread House (Lebkuchen being a symbol of Christmas that Nuremberg is famous for) to place behind the windows as an additional delight.
The calendar of Colmar, the Vienna of Alsace, is equally charming. Here we find Saint Nicholas greeting children on a town square.
And, the one of Seiffen - Germany's Christmas craft capital - has delightful drawings of a Wendt and Kuehn Angel along with a smoker and a Soldier on a Rocking Horse.
So many of our artisans are from Seiffen or the immediate surroundings within the Erzgebirge.
These are just a few of the Brück und Sohn Calendars that we offer. Find them - here - and Enjoy!
Nuremberg Christkindlmarkt / Christmas Market - Brück and Sohn Advent Calendar
The Nuremberg Christkindlmarkt / Christmas Market is one of the oldest (since before 1628) and largest in Germany, and one of the most famous in the world.
The market is known as the little town made of wood and cloth - with its post and beam wooden stalls and candy cane cloth "roofs." Every year the Christmas market begins on the Friday preceding the first Sunday in Advent and ends on December 24, unless that day is a Sunday.
Christkindlesmarkt means Christ Child Market. Every other year a Christkind is chosen to represent the Fair. The Nuremberg Christkind
with her white and golden dress, long blond curls, and golden crown has been the symbol of the Christmas Market for many decades. She opens the Market each year with a prayer.
Visit the Official Nuremberg Christkindlmarkt website for detailed information on the history of the fair (an historical timeline, photographs, and a video) and information on planning a visit.
Enjoy the countdown to Christmas here at home with our Brück and Sohn (Printers in Meissen, Germany since 1793) charming Advent Calendar of the historical
Nuremberg Christkindlmarkt.
The Wood Workers Shop - An Advent Calendar and our Traditional European Artisans
As we near this holiday season we realize that My Growing Traditions is truly about celebrating with the best of European folk art and Christmas. The artisans and their workshops whose folk art we offer are ones that represent the premier of their genre. All of them have histories that go back decades, some closing in on 100 years, and some beyond. They are artisans that have perfected their art and are recognized world-wide as masters in their field. They have been instrumental in creating and maintaining tradition. We carry Inge-Glas of Germany Christmas ornaments - the oldest Christmas ornament company in the world (since 1596) - and Marcel Carbonel Santons (since 1935) of Marseille, France, the preeminent Santons workshop.
And, we rejoice in the smaller workshops of the Erzgebirge, Germany - from the official German Christmas Village, Seiffen, and the toy-making villages that surround.
These wood-working artisans are so beautifully depicted in Brück und Sohn's (printer Meissen, Germany since 1793) Advent Calendar - The Erzgebirge Woodworker's Shop.
Click here for Brück und Sohn's other Advent Calendars available on My Growing Traditions.
Our fondness for the Woodworker's Shop Advent Calendar led us to want to share with you photos of the workshops of many of the artisans that we carry.
Christian Werner of Seiffen (since 1985) specializes in the exact work of the Woodworker's Shop - he is one of only eight who work in Reifendrehen, or ring-turning.
Bettina Franke has followed in her parents footsteps and carves wonderful Santas and nativity figures. Her workshop like Christian Werner's has flourished since the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of communism in Eastern Europe. 
The Emil Helbig Workshop (since 1933) of the toy making village of Grunhainichen in the Erzgebirge is renowned for their exquisite figures - here the wood carver works on a cat.
Classic Angels and many other wonderful wooden figures have been created by the Wendt and Kuhn Workshop in Grunhainichen since 1915.
And last but not least, we want to share with you here this picture of the creation of a wood-chip tree, or Spanbaum, a folk art that dates to the 1930s.
We have been privileged over the years to visit the workshops of each of these artisans - a true joy and an experience that has cemented our desire to make their work available to you.
Advent - History - Calendars and Candles
The tradition of Advent calendars has for many of us become an integral part of Christmas.
Within the Christian Church, Advent is tied to November 30th, the Feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle. Advent begins each year on the Sunday nearest St. Andrew's day and celebrates the anticipation of Christ's birth.
Printed Advent calendars were first produced by Gerhard Lang of Germany in the early 1900s. He was inspired by a calendar drawn by his mother and mounted on cardboard that included 24 pictures - one for each day of December through Christmas Eve. Lang took his mother's calendar one step further, creating the little doors that we know today. Enjoyed by children and adults alike, Advent calendars celebrate the Christmas season, and in a simple and yet magical way help us to focus on the beauty of the wait, a wait that is of course filled with all the wonderful preparations for the holiday.
My Growing Traditions offers a full selection of printed Advent calendars. We add new ones to our selection each year. We have:
Traditional Advent Calendars - where you will find Angels and Elves, Santas, and a 3-D Gingerbread House. Click here to explore our selection
Nativity Advent Calendars - with bible verses revealed underneath their doors. Click here
and wonderful Advent Calendars of European Cities from Brück and Sohn (Printers in Meissen, Germany since 1793). This one, one of many, is of Dresden, home of the first Christmas market in Germany. The first reference to Dresden's Christmas market was in 1434.
The Danish have their own distinct way of capturing the Advent season, with their Advent candles. Everyone enjoys pausing each day to burn down the candle one additional notch as they await the anticipated celebration of Christmas on December 25. We carry three and know you will delight in their use.
You may want to follow our Advent Board on Pinterest for more.
Happy Childhood
New for 2013, Happy Childhood (Inge-Glas no. 1-005-13, 4-1/2" tall) is a Limited Edition of 999 pieces, with Presentation Box, and most especially is in collaboration with the German wooden ornament workshop of Christian Ulbricht. Ulbricht has crafted the wooden rocking horse in her hand.
This sweet little girl reminds one of a child in a Victorian playroom, as seen in this Bruck and Sohn advent calendar offered by My Growing Traditions.
We must admit we scooped Happy Childhood up immediately as well as Snow Tweet - both being in collaboration with Christian Ulbricht. We have loved Ulbricht's simple and elegant Christmas ornaments and carry them proudly at My Growing Traditions.
Munich Christmas Market Advent Calendar
Brück and Sohn of Meissen, Germany have been in the printing business since 1793 and they have created a special series of Advent Calendars celebrating European towns, many of them in Germany, naturally.
Having lived in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, we visited many of the Bavarian Christmas markets - Chriskindlmarkts - year-in, year-out. Munich, the capital of the Free State of Bavaria, Germany, was the closest large Christmas market and one we never missed. Bruck and Sohn's Munich Advent Calendar is a treasured memory of those wonderful years.
In 2013 Munich's Christkindlmarkt and Kripperlmarkt opens on Monday, November 25th.
Munich's Christmas Market is special, in that since the 18th century it has had a section devoted specifically to Krippen (the nativity crib or creche). The Kripperlmarkt has only a half dozen booths and features hand-crafted, hand-carved nativity mangers, figures, and accessories from Oberammergau, South Tyrol, and the Erzgebirge (all wood-carving centers in Germany).
