Are you missing the true Advent spirit? Art can bring you peace

Is it beginning to look a lot like Christmas?

Not so much for many people. In many professions, it's difficult to get into the Christmas spirit at work anyway; often, additional year-end closing tasks have to be prepared right now, and even in shops that sell Christmas-themed items, there's more hectic activity than a contemplative atmosphere.

Sure, there's a hint of Christmas in the shops and on the streets. But less and less on the streets; energy is expensive – and in times of an energy transition that's hitting citizens much harder than an industry that's failing to provide enough resource-efficient solutions, dim lighting is simply more appropriate in public spaces than blazing lights. Retailers have been displaying Christmas decorations since September; they're simply done with it, it doesn't excite anyone anymore, and it certainly doesn't evoke any Advent spirit.

But creating an Advent atmosphere is possible; you just have to create it yourself, and that works very well with the help of the many arts that are offered everywhere during Advent.

Advent and Art in your region

Even if your home is bursting with lights and "overflowing with Advent spirit" (you can find out how to do this without breaking the bank in the article "When Christmas spirit is dark, light helps"), you should still venture out and soak up the Advent atmosphere outdoors. It exists in every community, but it's no longer necessarily a high-circulation local newspaper that publicizes all these offerings.

You can quickly and usually quite conveniently find out online what's going on in your hometown during Advent. A search engine query with the keywords "town" and "Advent" or "town" and "Christmas" usually returns several pages of various offers, and on the website www.meinestadt.de/townname you will find a concise overview of Christmas offers , from Christmas markets to restaurants for festive meals to Christmas cinema.

Here are a few ideas and keywords for discovering art and the Advent spirit in your surroundings:

• In Germany there are 11,374 politically independent cities and municipalities, about three times as many places, and there is probably an art associationthat offers something special during Advent.
• Then there are castles and fortresses, town halls and community halls, music schools and art schools, churches and cathedrals, museums and squares ; even in the botanical garden, an Advent atmosphere can arise, as in Solingen, where 14 artists from the Bergisches Land presented "Art in Advent" in the heated greenhouses
• Many artists' studios also "Art Advent" events , which aren't always called that, but always offer art to admire and a festive atmosphere. At the "Grauer Hof" in Aschersleben, the Christmas market features not only art, but also fairy tales and fairy tale films, cookies and campfire bread, crafts and mulled wine, concerts and tower brass bands.
• Ah yes – Christmas markets – these days, many cities also offer an alternative version free from blatant commercialism; they're often called, for example, Christmas and eco-markets – and it's truly astonishing how interesting the offerings can be at a market where all the colorful plastic Christmas junk is banned. If the Advent market features many artists and craftspeople, or even takes place in a museum, then it's naturally the perfect opportunity Christmas gifts that aren't bought by everyone and that not everyone has.
• However, you can also visit design Christmas markets or Advent sales that are not solely about "Christmas-themed" art, such as the traditional Advent sales exhibition of the Friends of the University of the Arts Berlin, where works by renowned artists are offered.
• And in virtually every major city, there are areas decorated with truly beautiful Christmas lights (in most cases, incidentally, already as energy-efficient as described in the article "When the Christmas spirit is dark, light helps"). Berlin's Ku'damm (Kurfürstendamm, the traditional boulevard in the west of the city) is a fine example, which can be seen in its 2012 Christmas attire at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk3jgO-wLEQ .

So many ideas would probably be enough for "a few Christmases," but usually the problem isn't too much time, but too little. Therefore, the article "Advent Spirit – In and Out of the Computer" presents a few ideas on how overzealous screen workers can get themselves, the rest of their office staff, or even their family at the dinner table (with "background cinema") into the Christmas spirit: