Until the beginning of the Second World War, Frankfurt had a strange custom in the run-up to Christmas that was not known anywhere else and which can be described as the "custom of the St Nicholas giants".
Pupils from secondary and public schools collected money to make these up to two metre high figures from gingerbread dough and carried the sugar-painted figures to their teacher.The gift was then eaten together. "Brenten", "Bethmännchen" and "Quetschemännchen" can look back on a centuries-old tradition as typical Frankfurt baked goods. In earlier times, they were produced in large quantities in the city's bourgeois houses. Unfortunately, however, the shy admirers of today no longer have the same opportunity as the admirers of the 19th century. They used to send a "squeeze" to the house of their admirer, if she kept it, he could hope, if she sent it back, he was not listened to.