In the weeks leading up to Christmas in the 1960s, we had a Sunday ritual in my childhood home — the lighting of candles on the Advent wreath.
My parents placed a circle of (faux) evergreens holding four candles — three purple, one pink — atop our dining-room table. On the first Sunday of Advent — the period leading up to the birth of the Christ child — we lit a candle and said a prayer. The second Sunday, we lit two candles, and so on, until all the candles were lit on the fourth and last Sunday of Advent.
Read More: Advent tradition survives
