In the bleak mid-winter we need hope in our hearts… Something to look forward to… We need love in our heart… Love for our fellow man… Whatever creed or colour, Yuletide is a message of love and salvation… Advent is a celebration of the promise of this love and salvation.The early believers would run into the streets on Advent Sunday, the fourth Sunday before Christmas Eve, they would take to the streets screaming with joy “Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming! Hallelujah!” But that alas is a long forgotten age.In this new age of ours, this modern world we do things a little different!Do you know how we celebrate Advent and the coming of Christmas now?All over the Christian world four special candles are lit, one on each Sunday of the four weeks of Advent… So finally by Christmas Eve and Midnight Mass all four candles burn bright in exaltation.In Northern Europe, especially Scandinavia, The British Isles, and Germanic Europe a special wreath or calendar is hung in the house. This calendar has twenty-four special windows, each containing a special prayer message, gift or YES you guest it CHOCOLATE… This tradition started about two hundred years ago with the Lutherans. These days the calendar helps us to become physically excited, especially children… By allowing children to only open one window each day we recreate the feeling of building excitement and of fasting before a feast… This fasting, allows us to focus on real pleasures and the gift behind each window is a little reward for a child’s obedient awaiting.Do you know what fasting is? Have you ever fasted?/Sendai Study Advisor Ali