«Advent calendar. A tradition with many doors.» Special exhibition

Walk-in Advent calendar in the Children's Museum

A life-size Advent calendar will be on display at the Swiss Children's Museum in Baden from November 15. Hidden behind the little doors are stories and tales about the popular Advent tradition. The exhibition is inspired by an Aargau invention: the walk-in neighborhood Advent calendar.

Who invented it? Switzerland, of course. More precisely, Aargau. The popular neighborhood Advent calendars, in which a new Advent window opens every evening during Advent, originated here in the Swiss Mittelland. The current Christmas exhibition at the Children's Museum "Advent calendars. A custom with many little doors" follows in the footsteps of this tradition and tells the story of the Advent calendar from its predecessors to the first printed calendars from Germany to the present day.

A walk through an Advent calendar

The exhibition at the Swiss Children's Museum in Baden invites you to take a walk through an Advent calendar from November 15, 2025 to January 11, 2026. Hidden behind each door is a small room that focuses on one facet of this Advent custom. On entering, visitors encounter early forms of the custom, which were practiced without doors and paper, but with chalk or straw. Behind one door, they discover the Advent interplay of light and darkness. Behind others, they learn how the Advent calendar shapes the Advent season or what St. Nicholas has to do with it all.

24 doors, 24 surprises

An Advent calendar for all the senses welcomes guests of all ages to the exhibition. Hidden behind the 24 doors are 24 surprises to delight the eye, the ear or the nose. The Baden stage poet Simon Libsig tells the 24 pranks of the Christmas elf Wanda Wolkenbruch. Wanda's Christmas pranks can be heard on site or taken home as an Advent calendar book.

An Advent museum

The exhibition is accompanied by numerous Advent activities in the children's museum. Children design their own Advent calendars, school classes discover the tradition during a guided tour and sweet-toothed children decorate a sweet Advent clock. Thanks to the creativity of the children from the nearby Ländli school, the whole house shines in festive Advent light. The classes have decorated the museum with their Advent windows and transformed it into a real "Advent museum".

Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.