- Show variety of Christmas traditions in Germany
- Present Christmas markets of the nine Northern ESN cities
- Make the time before Christmas a little sweeter with short and funny daily videos
This event was a joint project between the nine Northern sections of ESN Germany (ESN North Cooperation): ESN Kiel, ESN Candidate Section Lübeck, ESN LEI Rostock, ESN LEI Greifswald, ESN Hamburg, ESN Hannover, ESN Hildesheim, ESN Braunschweig, ESN Göttingen.
The main idea of the project was to have a virtual Christmas Calendar on Instagram. Each of the nine Northern sections produced two or three short Instagram stories to show German Christmas traditions to international students following on Instagram. These stories were posted daily in December (from 1st to 24th). To maximize the reach, the videos were posted/reposted in the morning on all nine Instagram accounts (ca. 10 000 followers in total). Among many other things, the videos showcased Christmas markets, baking of traditional cookies, baking of gingerbread houses, or hand-crafting decoration. The sections also produced very creative videos about, e.g., a weight-lifting Christmas elf, an ice-skating lion, or a team of volunteers taking an ice bath. Also, the Advent Calendar itself is a German tradition: Most Germans - from children to grandparents - own some type of Advent Calendar.
In conclusion, we could accompany our international students through the time before Christmas, show them different parts of Northern Germany, familiarize them with German Christmas traditions, and hopefully make them laugh every now and then.
