Me and my host family in front of our Christmas tree, which is lit with real candles.
possible, but this Christmas I slept in because I knew that we wouldn't be opening presents until evening. Now, this has both its plus sides and downsides. The plus side was that we still had time to do any last-minute Christmas wrapping or card writing. The downside was that we didn't really have anything else to do until suppertime.
We ate another typical Swiss meal called "fondue chinoise". Basically you put a piece of any kind of raw meat on a special fork and then place it in a bowl of hot soup in the center of the table. Once the meat is cooked, you can eat it, and I found it quite good.
After the meal I played my violin with Vati (host dad) playing the guitar. Then we sang several German Christmas songs together, and they wanted me to read the Christmas story aloud from my English Bible, so I obliged. Finally we prayed before we began opening presents, but there was no hurry.
The strategy for opening presents here was also a little different. One person would start by finding one present that they had wrapped themselves and giving it to the intended person. That person would unwrap the present, say thanks by hugging the giver, and then contemplate on which present they should give next. That way everyone gets an equal chance of unwrapping gifts, but it takes a very long time.
Once all of the gifts were unwrapped however, we didn't have much time to do anything with them, so we ended up getting to bed really late.
Okay, I guess it sounds like I prefer the American way, but that doesn't mean that I still didn't have a good day. It was great. I even got to skype with my American family and was surprised when I would occasionally speak in German to them (accidentally, of course).
The day after Christmas was reserved for a big family reunion, and for me it was extra confusing, since I hadn't even met most of the people before. It was quite exhausting, too, trying to keep up with what everyone was saying in their conversations.
The last several days have mostly been very quiet. My host family doesn't have any travel plans for this vacation, which is fine by me. I enjoy staying home and reading a book. The weird thing though is that we don't have any snow here, and I keep hearing about how much it is snowing in Lititz.
Now, today is the last day of 2012, and tonight I will be celebrating New Year's Eve (Silvester), with some families whom I actually know at church. I'm not exactly sure at how it's going to be different from a typical American celebration, but I know that it will be different from how I have personally celebrated it in the past: watching the TV with my mom.
My host family made a deal with me that they wouldn't speak a lot of Swiss German to me until it's January. Well, that probably means that as soon as the countdown is over, my host brother will start rattling off in Swiss German to me nonstop.
So, just when I'm beginning to start comfortable with High German, I'm going to have to start all over by learning Swiss German.
Can't.
Wait.
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