This exhibition for Advent and Christmas-tide gives an insight into one of the largest museum collections of advent calendars in the world. The presentation has already been seen in many German states under the auspices of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz's Federal Programme, but it has been redesigned for Berlin. With around 200 calendars on display, it explores the specific characteristics of the advent calendar and its development, both in Europe as a whole and in Germany in particular. Supplementing this overview are twenty-four special display-points featuring selected calendars and particular aspects of the Advent season.

On the one hand, the exhibition is about people who have a special relationship with advent calendars, perhaps as designers or users. On the other hand, it takes a look at particular European Advent traditions: the figures of “Zwarte Piet” and “the Krampus”, who accompany St Nicolas on his rounds, for example, or a Christmas television series which is popular in Sweden. One unusual calendar to be featured is the so-called “Abreiß-Advent” from the year 1989, where you could “tear down” the Berlin Wall in 24 days. To mark this exhibition, Juliane Hackbeil has created a “Berlin Advent Calendar”, which features the Museum Europäischer Kulturen in the foreground.

There is a free audio guide for children and their parents, with an Advent play which can be listened to in 14 instalments as you move round the exhibition: Schoko-Li, a little girl from Tokyo, comes to Germany with her mother during Advent and has lots of adventures – lovely, exciting … and sometimes a little sad – until at last, on Christmas Eve, when all the lights are burning on the Christmas tree, she sees her father again.

24 days to Papa: an audio play for all the family