Marcel Winatschek

December Afternoon

A group of kids from the SOS children’s village in Marzahn came by the studio last month—twenty of them, maybe fewer. They wanted to make Christmas cards, so we made them. They’d sketch an idea or describe what they wanted, I’d help get it into the computer, and we’d print it out. Then they’d cut and paste and find glitter somehow, because there’s always glitter. There was cocoa. There were cookies I didn’t eat. Someone brought costumes and we ended up doing photo shoots that nobody had planned.

What stayed with me was how much they cared about getting it right. No overthinking, no wondering if it was cool or good—just wanted it to look the way they imagined. You lose that somewhere in the middle of trying to have taste.

The whole thing was for a good cause, which mattered, but that’s not why it was good. It was the afternoon itself. Kids thinking about their design, the printer going, someone worried theirs wasn’t dark enough. That’s the part that stuck.