Advent is a little like Lent and some people fast or give up certain foods. Orthodox Christians often don't eat meat and dairy during Advent and on certain days also forego wine and fish, therefore practically vegan!
To count the days in Advent we use calendars (the chocolate ones being my favourite) or candles to mark the four Sundays leading to Christmas. Any child of the 1970s will remember the Blue Peter Advent Crown where the mix of wire coat hangers, tinsel and lit candles was surely a fire hazard to any child attempting to make one.
There are also Advent Songs sung in Churches and Schools, the most famous probably being Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel. This should not be confused with Emmanuelle, the rather rude film I accidentally watched in 1979 with a friend at the cinema. Yes really! It was in the days when you got to see two films for the price of one. The film "10" with Bo Derek and Dudley Moore had just come out and we planned to see it. The extra film was Emmanuelle and, eager to get our money's worth and believing it to be a scarey film, we trotted off to see them. Unfortunately Emmanuelle was shown first and we slid down in our seats and concentrated on our sweets and chocolates, not daring to get up and go out for fear of being seen in the rather sparsely populated cinema! Indeed it proved to be a scarey film for two innocent teenage girls and was an endurance test with the prize being the film of the moment, 10.
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