Sweet little door: cotton candy in number 21
Living advent calendar opens one last time
“Last Christmas” resounds loudly over Westerbachstraße, the Christmas music comes from a small red box. It smells of candy floss and Moroccan pumpkin soup, fairy lights enchant the otherwise rather dreary square in front of the district office in a small Christmas market. Right in the middle is district manager Heike Hecker in a red coat. She greets everyone who comes by and shows what’s in the penultimate door of the Living Advent Calendar, which she organized together with Bernhard Schmidkunz from the New Neighborhoods Network within a short time.
Little preparation time
“I was hoping there would be a lot of interest. But I didn’t expect it to be so big,” says the district manager of Diakonie Frankfurt and initially turns down the volume of the Christmas music a little. It’s even more contemplative that way. At the end of October, maybe not until the beginning of November, says Hecker, she had the idea of reviving this special kind of Advent calendar in the district, which existed until a few years ago.
At a meeting of the district working group, it was discussed. And because Heike Hecker is a woman of action who doesn’t hesitate, she immediately puts her foot down. “Thanks to the network that I have built up over the past few years and the support of Bernhard Schmidkunz, many interested parties came together very quickly,” she says. So many that the living advent calendar had to start at the end of November. And: on quite a few days, a little door opens twice at different places in the district. Because the organizers didn’t want to turn anyone away, the joy at the enormous interest was too great,
“Looking back, I should have expected it. I know how active and committed the people here in Rödelheim are,” says the district manager. After all the registrations, she faced a major challenge. Then the mixture of the calendar should be balanced, each door should offer a change. She had to make a lot of phone calls and write emails. Ultimately, however, everything was put right. She also found a solution for her problem child, December 16th. Surprisingly, many of the participants would have liked the date, says Hecker.
While the district manager unfortunately didn’t manage to be present at every door, Hanne Lottner, who enjoys the “very tasty” pumpkin soup, makes a total of 14 visits. She would have liked everything so far, but she particularly liked the two concerts at the gas station in Hausener Weg and the singing of the language students in the “Center for the German Language” in Rödelheimer Parkweg. “That was really unique in terms of singing,” she says, while the square in front of the neighborhood office and the interior are getting fuller and fuller.
Inside, in addition to delicious cookies, there is also the second edition of the Rödelheim cookbook, which “went down a bit” as Hecker says due to the corona pandemic. As well as many other activities in the past two years. Perhaps the interest in the living advent calendar was so great? You don’t know, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. “It’s just nice that you can meet in different places,” says one mother. While her daughter proudly holds a cotton candy in her hand. The family lives directly opposite. “For me, there could be cotton candy every day. It would be great if every day was Christmas and there was always such a delicious advent calendar,” says eight-year-old Yomna, wiping the sugar out of the corner of her mouth.
The last door
Today, December 23, at 5 p.m., there will be mulled wine and live music at the Schmidkunz family, Dreispitzstraße 2.