Where do Advent calendars come from?



While most people are very familiar with and practice the lighthearted tradition of Advent calendars, many might be surprised by its relatively recent development as a Christian tradition.

The Advent calendar is a Christian tradition dating back only to the 19th century, making it less than 200 years old. Advent, derived from the Latin word "adventus," means
coming” or “arrival.”

'Lacking windows at first, Lang’s design is essentially the same style we have today, though war and a few subsequent alterations would change it slightly.'

The calendar counts down the days until Christmas during the Advent season, which is also the very beginning of the liturgical calendar. The Advent calendar then, in its most basic form, is a method of counting down the days until the coming of Christ on Christmas day.

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Photo by AMAURY CORNU/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

Often, in more recent iterations, small treats, gifts, and pictures are placed in the doors of the calendar, the number of which usually range between 22 and 28 days depending on the day that Christmas Day falls on. Because of the possible range, most Advent calendars simply begin on December 1 and end on December 24, Christmas Eve.

Counting down

The Advent calendar has seen quite a few variations in its relatively short-lived existence, though the basic idea has always been the same.

A tradition originating among Lutheran Christians, Advent calendars first involved chalk marks that would be erased as the day approached. This practice helped believers anticipate the coming of Christ.

Originating in and around Munich, Germany, in the 19th century, Advent calendars were used to count down the days until Christmas Day.

Gerhard Lang is widely regarded as the creator of the modern Advent calendar. A partner at the lithographic institute Reichhold & Lang, Gerhard Lang is credited with printing the first Advent calendar in 1908, though some say it was some years later.

Lacking windows at first, Lang's design is essentially the same style we have today, though war and a few subsequent alterations would change it slightly.

Knock, knock

The small, numbered doors, a staple of contemporary calendars, were introduced in 1920. They sometimes had Bible verses or little pictures behind them.

Lang produced around 30 different calendar designs up until the end of the 1930s, when paper shortages and a national ban on paper calendars forced him to shutter the popular business.

However, Advent calendars made a post-war comeback. Richard Sellmer, the founder of the Sellmer Verlag publishing house, published the first Advent calendar after the Second World War, reviving the tradition.

Eighty years later, Sellmer Verlag still sells Advent calendars.

Coming to America

It is believed that American soldiers brought these calendars back after the war, and the tradition spread to the United States.

According to Britannica, the tradition of chocolate behind the doors was introduced in the 1950s, presumably to keep children engaged.

In America, the Advent calendar's popularity spread quickly in the post-war era. These days, children and adults alike can enjoy counting down the days until the Lord's Nativity with a vast array of different calendar designs.

The ‘blue-slip block’ is GOP cowardice masquerading as tradition



President Trump and Vice President Vance have every right — and every reason — to call out Republican senators who hide behind the so-called blue-slip tradition to block nominees for key executive positions, especially U.S. attorneys.

The effect is simple and damaging: Trump is denied the full exercise of his constitutional authority over the executive branch. Without aligned U.S. attorneys across the country’s 94 districts, the administration’s de-weaponization agenda stalls. In some cases, it collapses outright. So far, the Senate has advanced just 18 of the 50 U.S. attorneys nominated by the administration.

That is the real function of the blue slip. It is not institutionalism. It is careerism. It lets senators hide.

The blue slip is a Senate custom requiring the consent of both home-state senators before certain nominees — U.S. attorneys, judges, U.S. marshals — can advance to committee. In practice, it operates as a hack of the Constitution. The Senate’s role is advice and consent by the full body. The blue slip transfers that power to two senators, and often to just one, who can halt the process without explanation or accountability.

Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has insisted that the Republican Senate will not reconsider the practice despite the abysmal pace of confirmations. “There are many Republican senators — way more Republican senators who are interested in preserving that than those who aren’t,” he said. What he has not explained is why.

The answer is avoidance. The blue slip spares Republican senators from taking difficult votes. The fewer Trump-aligned U.S. attorneys brought to the floor, the fewer public positions senators must take. The blue slip allows them to kill nominations quietly rather than oppose them openly.

Despite years of rhetoric about party realignment, the Senate remains dominated by politicians hostile to Trump’s agenda. Some were forced out. Many more learned to mimic an America First accent without embracing America First policy. They do just enough to deter primary challengers while staying safely aligned with donors, lobbyists, and institutional power.

Forcing senators to vote up or down on Trump-aligned prosecutors like Alina Habba in New Jersey or Julianne Murray in Delaware — both of whom were serving as acting U.S. attorneys until the Senate ran out the clock — would expose those evasions. So the Senate stalled them instead.

I watched this play out firsthand during the failed confirmation of Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. Because D.C. is not a state, the blue slip did not apply. Senate leadership attempted a different maneuver: delay until time expired.

When the base demanded a vote, Senator Thom Tillis (RINO-N.C.) stepped in and tanked Martin’s nomination outright. As a judiciary committee member, Tillis effectively wielded a one-man veto by shifting the committee balance back toward Democrats.

That decision carried consequences. Shortly afterward, Tillis opposed advancing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in its existing form. Trump threatened a primary. Tillis burned through his remaining political capital and soon announced that he would not seek re-election.

Had Tillis been able to blue-slip Martin, he might have avoided that outcome.

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Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

That is the real function of the blue slip. It is not institutionalism. It is careerism. Cloaked in collegial language, it operates as a mutual defense pact among Republican senators to shield one another from accountability. It lets senators hide. A six-year Senate term has become a financial asset in a hyper-funded political system. Assets avoid risk. Votes create risk. Fewer votes mean greater protection.

Defenders of the blue slip claim it preserves the Senate’s unique institutional character. That argument belongs to another century. Today’s Senate is neither deliberative nor restrained. It lurches between performative hearings and massive spending bills, punctuated by social media sound bites. Any appeal to Jeffersonian dignity at this point borders on parody.

Notably, the blue slip never restrains Democrats. When Democrats want nominees confirmed, process does not stand in the way. For Republicans, the blue slip amounts to unilateral disarmament dressed up as principle.

Trump and Vance should keep attacking this practice publicly. The only antidote to procedural cowardice is exposure. Voters who support a mandate deserve to see whether their senators will carry it out — or hide behind tradition while returning to business as usual in Washington.

Even if Republican senators ultimately vote against these nominees, at least the votes would happen in the open. Accountability begins there.

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The manual for life is dead and gone — and no one told your kids



A colleague of mine recently told me a story about his grandfather. When he was a boy, his family would wait for the iceman to arrive. The iceman — an actual person — would come to their home with a block of ice for the family’s icebox. It was a regular event, like the milkman or the postman, and part of the rhythm of life.

That story stuck with me — not because it was quaint, but because it triggered a deeper realization.

We are watching in real time the collapse of intergenerational continuity.

My colleague’s grandfather relied on the iceman, and his father probably did, too. And his father’s father? Almost certainly. For generations, their lives likely looked the same. They shared the same routines, occupations, habits, expectations, and assumptions about how the world worked.

The world changed — but it changed slowly. Generational continuity was a given, not a gift. Not so anymore.

My colleague’s own life bears little resemblance to his father’s. He works remotely, reads the news on a device in his pocket, and navigates a culture reshaped by social media, digital platforms, and technologies that didn’t exist when he was born. The pace of change has gone from a gentle trickle to a roaring cascade — and with it, the chasm between generations has widened.

The generational delta

To frame this, let’s talk about what I call the “generational delta”: a rough percentage of how much one generation’s way of life differs from the last.

A thousand years ago, that delta might have been 1%. Your father’s life was your life. You tilled the same land, spoke the same dialect, and obeyed the same customs. You learned how to live by watching your parents and doing what they did. The knowledge they passed down was 99% applicable to your world.

By the early 1900s, that rate picked up a bit. Industrialization, urbanization, and mechanization changed everyday life. Still, the average person’s habits and values bore a strong resemblance to those of their parents. Maybe, the generational delta had climbed to 4%.

In the early 2000s, the pace accelerated. The internet reshaped work, entertainment, and communication. Kids no longer congregated at the mall, and many aspects of daily life were beginning to diverge from the experiences of their parents.

New standards were emerging in work, education, relationships, and even identity as digital life began to supplement — sometimes outright replace — traditional experiences. These shifts, while still gradual, began to create noticeable differences between generations. The generational delta may have risen to around 10%.

Today? It feels closer to 30% — maybe more.

Fading generational relevance

We are watching in real time the collapse of intergenerational continuity. Parents can no longer reliably prepare their children for the world they will inhabit because that world is changing too quickly for wisdom to keep up.

A major reason is the all-encompassing nature of modern digital life. Social media has become not just a pastime but a primary lens through which many people experience the world. Trends, ideas, and cultural norms now evolve at the speed of a swipe.

Add to this the advent of artificial intelligence, which is accelerating shifts in education, employment, communication, and even human relationships. These forces are reshaping society so quickly and profoundly that inherited wisdom, once reliably passed from parent to child, struggles to remain relevant for even a single generation.

Let’s use a metaphor. Imagine that every generation passes down an “operator’s manual” for how to be a functioning, successful adult. This manual isn’t written down but rather transmitted through advice, discipline, storytelling, and observation. It tells you how to find work, how to behave in public, how to marry, how to raise kids, how to handle suffering and success.

It’s not that parents don’t have wisdom; it’s that the world keeps moving the goalposts.

For most of human history, that manual changed very little from generation to generation. The instructions your great-great-grandfather had still worked for your great-grandfather. And the manual your father left you was probably mostly useful. Sure, a chapter here or there might be outdated — maybe the bit about walking uphill to school both ways no longer applied — but most of it was solid.

Today, huge sections of that manual will be obsolete by the time a child becomes a teenager.

A parent warns their child not to spend too much time watching TV — only to realize their child doesn't watch any TV at all but instead consumes algorithmically generated content on three different apps they can’t name. A father explains the importance of in-person communication, while his son is navigating a dating landscape shaped by swipe culture, ghosting, and AI companionship. A mother gives her daughter guidance on writing college essays, unaware that large language models are reshaping the entire application process.

It’s not that parents don’t have wisdom; it’s that the world keeps moving the goalposts.

As this trend continues, something more corrosive begins to happen. Children begin to suspect — not entirely wrongly — that the wisdom of their parents is not only outdated but irrelevant. They stop reading the operator’s manual entirely. They toss it aside and begin writing their own from scratch, guided not by time-tested principles but by whatever voices are loudest in the moment.

This breakdown in generational transmission doesn’t just lead to confusion — it breeds arrogance. When you believe the past has nothing to teach you, you don’t just ignore it; you mock it. Tradition becomes a punchline. Elders become artifacts. The voices of the dead are silent under the noise of the now.

This is not progress. It’s a form of cultural amnesia.

From manual to compass

This is not a Luddite’s lament. I’m not calling for the return of the iceman. I am marveling at — and grieving — a rupture that feels both inevitable and unsustainable. We are now in the strange position of raising children for a world we cannot envision, using tools they no longer recognize.

What, then, are we to do?

Perhaps we return to something older than the iceman, older than the operator’s manual itself: virtue. The habits of heart and mind that transcend technological context. Courage, honesty, discipline, humility, faith — these don’t go out of style. They are not bound to the machinery of the age.

We may not be able to write the next generation’s manual, but we can give them a compass.

Because when the pace of change makes everything else uncertain, what matters most isn’t whether your advice is up-to-date.

It’s whether your children still trust you to give it.

David Brooks says Trump buried virtue. He’s ignoring the real killer.



New York Times columnist David Brooks’ recent essay in the Atlantic mourned the corrosion of America’s moral fabric. Naturally, Donald Trump is to blame.

Trump’s “narcissistic nihilism,” Brooks argues, is driven by a single philosophy: “Morality is for suckers.” Christian virtues are for the weak. Nietzschean pagan values of power, courage, and glory are for winners. And although many in Trump’s administration “have crosses on their chest,” they harbor “Nietzsche in their heart.” This “deadly cocktail” has transformed America into an entity unrecognizable from the “force for tremendous good” that, according to Brooks, was laid in its coffin on January 20, 2025.

Trump’s appeal to many wasn’t that he embodied virtue. Rather, it was that he promised to protect what remained of the institutions that made virtue possible.

Brooks isn’t the first to hurl such accusations against the president, though, admittedly, he does so in a manner that tickles my philosophical fancy. America’s moral decline has been an issue of concern long before Trump took office.

But is Trump — or any single political leader — really to blame?

Politics follows culture

Like many veterans of the political class, Brooks puts too much faith in institutions. Both parties cling to the comforting illusion that culture flows downstream from politics. Spend enough time inside the D.C. bubble, and even sincere conservatives start to believe that electing the “right” people or passing the “right” laws can do more than govern — that politics can redeem souls from moral collapse.

But pretending policy carries no moral weight is equally foolish. Ask anyone who’s lived under a truly corrupt regime. Still, culture shapes politics more than Washington bureaucrats care to admit.

Diagnosing America’s cultural decline requires more than scolding a single president or passing a bill. It means examining the social landscape that produced such politics in the first place. To understand Washington, we must first look to the soul of the voters who send their leaders there.

Yes, speaking of a national “soul” risks painting in broad strokes at the expense of nuance. Even Brooks would likely concede this much. Americans are desperately reaching for moral touchstones that the culture once upheld. Those touchstones — faith, family, tradition — have been torn down by the very ideologues Trump was elected to oppose.

Up from disillusionment

Brooks concedes a sliver of the truth, admitting that the left has built “a stifling orthodoxy that stamped out dissent.” But his diagnosis barely touches the depth of America’s moral confusion.

More than 40 years ago, Alasdair MacIntyre warned in “After Virtue” that modern society had gutted the moral framework needed to make moral language coherent. Today, we still invoke that language — justice, dignity, meaning — but with no shared foundation beneath it. Efforts to rebuild those foundations now face open hostility.

When public figures like Jordan Peterson face censure for reviving moral guidance once common in homes, churches, and civic life, it reveals something darker. Americans have lost access to the moral raw materials required to build a meaningful life.

Trump’s appeal never rested on personal virtue. It rested on his willingness to defend the institutions that make virtue possible. For millions of voters, he stood as a bulwark against moral collapse — not a saint but a protector of sacred ground. That’s what won him the loyalty of Americans disillusioned by the left’s assault on the moral structures they once relied upon.

The government’s job isn’t to redeem souls. It’s to safeguard the conditions under which people can pursue goodness, truth, and a flourishing life. That means defending the cultural space where moral frameworks can take root — and keeping vandals from tearing it apart.

Brooks calls this “narcissistic nihilism.” In reality, it’s something far rarer: hope — the hope that virtue can still grow in the soil that remains.

Young people are FLOCKING to the Catholic Church — here’s why



According to several recent reports, including one from the National Catholic Register, we’ve seen a huge surge in Catholic conversions — especially among younger generations. A recent New York Post article highlighted the “growing number of young people turning to the Catholic Church from other denominations, religions and even no faith at all.”

What’s behind this sudden flocking to Catholicism?

Glenn Beck says that people are drawn to Catholic rituals because they offer order and meaning in this era of progressive chaos.

He reflects on Michelle Obama’s infamous 2008 speech, during which she claimed that “we are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history.”

A decade and a half later, and it’s clear that uprooting tradition results in division, displacement, and disorder.

Tradition, Glenn explains, is “deeply human” and serves to “mark moments that matter in our lives” and “helps organize things in our mind.”

Catholicism, which is predicated on tradition, can restore the emptiness our current culture has adopted.

“Rituals in Catholicism — the Eucharist or the confession — elevate this instinct, this need to the sacred, so it’s not just a routine; it is a bridge to meaning,” says Glenn. “That matters because when you have meaning and there's a storm in your life, it gives structure so it doesn't feel like the storm is just going to wipe you out entirely.”

Modern worship doesn’t seem to offer the same stability as traditional worship. The Post article notes that “Gen Z crave clarity and certainty” and are therefore “rejecting lax alternatives of modern worship.”

“Why? Because modern worship tells you you can believe anything; there are no real rules,” says Glenn.

The problem is, that kind of progressive doctrine lacks substance, which is what the human soul is designed to thirst for. Ritual and tradition can offer a solution because they “build communities — like a congregation singing together in unison or a neighborhood block party,” says Glenn.

“We now live in a world of screen and rush,” he explains. But rituals and traditions “will slow you down, make you present in the moment.”

“They're not about rules; they're all about meaning if you do it right. This isn't about recognizing one faith over another. This is about recognizing what rituals do for us.”

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the clip above.

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Women won the ‘war on marriage’ — now they miss the spoils



If feminists were honest revolutionaries, they would change their slogan from “Smash the Patriarchy” to “Mission Accomplished.” The numbers don’t lie. Single women own more homes than single men. More women are primary breadwinners than ever before. The gender balance on college campuses has completely changed over the past six decades. Women earned 35% of Bachelor’s degrees in 1960. Today, they earn close to 60%. Even the norms on sex have changed. Magazines like Teen Vogueand sex-positive feminist outlets will write in defense of “sex work” but would never publish a modesty manifesto urging women to be more “ladylike.”

Despite the “pay inequality” propaganda the left weaponizes to make women see themselves as victims, the truth is that the sisterhood has been victorious. The problem is that women's triumph has come at the cost of the one thing they want most: a family.

Plenty of men aren’t hostile to working women — they’re just not interested in marrying women who act like the job comes first.

Megyn Kelly recently highlighted a growing tension on the right: Young conservative women struggle to find marriage-minded men. The former Fox News anchor said many right-wing men avoid marrying women with careers. According to Kelly, these men see professional ambition as a threat to traditional family life. She warned this mindset could marginalize outspoken conservative women in high-profile jobs.

This debate cuts to the core of the right’s broader conversation about rebuilding the family. I’ve spent years researching marriage trends, and the concerns these women voice reflect real dilemmas. But the men aren't speaking nonsense, either. Many believe that career-driven women will inevitably choose ambition over family. They want wives who share their priorities — not women chasing a different future.

Recent data from the Pew Research Center backs this up. Just 43% of Republican women say society benefits when people prioritize marriage and children. That’s nearly 10 points lower than Republican men. Meanwhile, women are more likely than men to say careers make life fulfilling — 74% compared to 69%.

Men put more weight on family. Twenty-eight percent of Republican men say marriage is extremely or very important to a fulfilling life, compared to only 18% of women. When asked about children, 29% of men agreed, seven points higher than their female counterparts.

Some men may oppose working women on principle, but most simply want wives who put family ahead of career — especially during their children’s early years. Yes, many households need two incomes to get by. But the right’s current debates over gender, marriage, and fertility go far beyond money.

The word “economics” comes from the Greek "oikonomia," meaning household management. The home was never meant to be a holding cell. It was supposed to serve as the engine of spiritual, social, educational, and economic life.

Feminists like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan rejected that idea. They framed the home as a prison, a place where women played “hostess” and “housekeeper” under the thumb of domineering husbands.

That mindset reshaped the culture. The most successful front in the gender wars wasn’t about breaking glass ceilings — it was about “liberating” women from any perceived duty to their husbands, children, or homes.

This obviously isn’t to say women don’t contribute at home. In most families, they’re the ones making sure meals get made, appointments get kept, and the kids show up to practice. But these actions aren’t framed as public obligations. No one shames a woman who misses the mark. There is no social penalty for opting out.

Meanwhile, the standards for men remain clear and unforgiving. For all the upheaval American families have seen in the past 50 years, society still expects men to provide and protect. A man who fails to support his family financially gets branded a “deadbeat.” A man who ducks behind his wife during a street altercation becomes a viral punchline.

Nothing comparable exists for women. Some suggest nurturing and supporting the family are equal expectations, but society rarely defines what those look like. Why? Because the feminist movement made it taboo to speak as if women must do anything in particular to be considered a good wife and mother.

That silence creates an imbalance in the home — an asymmetry that underlies not just policy debates on maternity leave but cultural arguments over “trad” lifestyles and modern family roles.

Society lectures men about duty and responsibility. It tells women about rights and freedom. When a father sacrifices for his family, he earns praise. When a mother does the same, she gets told to prioritize self-care — because a “whole” woman supposedly makes a better parent.

Even when women abandon their families, the media often wraps the story in the language of empowerment. A woman who leaves a decent husband and young kids to drink Chardonnay on Wednesdays and sweat through Bikram yoga on Thursdays won’t be condemned. She’ll be celebrated. Outlets will rush to reframe the desertion as a stunning and brave act of self-discovery. We can’t fix the American family without confronting sex differences. The political right burns energy on gender identity while ignoring a more urgent problem: how men and women function differently at home.

Plenty of successful men marry high-earning women. But no culture teaches that women should support both a grown man and their children. That’s why women tend to seek partners who earn more. U.S. Census data backs this up: Female physicians often marry within their profession. Male doctors, on the other hand, marry nurses and teachers.

Conservative women misunderstand the men they complain about. Most aren’t hostile to women in the workforce. They’re just not interested in marrying women who treat the job as their top priority. They want a wife who puts family first — because they do.

Even those who claim women can “have it all” admit they can’t have it all at once. You can’t spend 70 hours a week at the office and be as present for your children as a stay-at-home mother.

Men make that trade-off because we’re expected to provide. That’s why we don’t gripe when mom gets the first hug at graduation. But every career-driven woman who outsources her maternal role needs to answer one hard question: Is she comfortable with the nanny getting that moment instead?