Christmas Break Recap

Since I have been behind on making creating new blog posts, this one will cover everything that I did over the Winter Break. I'll try to be more timely with my blog posts in the future.

My break from school started off immediately with the Christmas traditions of Germany. First, I attended the big party run by my school on the 23rd which was fun, but also incredibly loud and crazy. After the party, I stayed at home and celebrated Christmas with my host family.

Something that I find interesting about Germany during the holidays is the time in which they put up their Christmas trees. Instead of having a Christmas tree up from the beginning of December until shortly after Christmas day, Germans put up their Christmas trees the week of Christmas and don't take them down until late January. This makes more sense because the official season of Christmas doesn't start until Christmas day, but I think I still prefer a Christmas tree throughout December. As for presents, we all put out presents under the tree at the same time on Christmas eve in the morning instead of letting them build up throughout the previous month.

Another thing that Germans do that Americans don't is celebrate on the 24th of December instead of the 25th. All of the church services, big meals, and present opening happens on the 24th here. I didn't feel like that was so different from back home given I grew up in a family that opens presents on the 24th as well.

My host parents were kind enough to gift me a giant map of Germany for Christmas. After them insisting that I make a Christmas wish, I thought that a Germany map would be a perfect gift for an exchange student. The one that they got me was even bigger than I had expected, and there's only one piece of wall big enough in my room for it to hang. It's hung right next to my desk, and it serves as a distraction sometimes when I start looking at all the details on it instead of finishing my homework (or finishing this blog post).

As for new years, me along with all of my host siblings all scattered out to the different plans that we had made in the previous weeks. I myself went to the house of a friend of mine from school to celebrate the closing of 2022.

After the start of the new year, things were pretty laid back (except for the last couple of days which I'll get to in my next post). I did however make a full meal for my host family which was a lot of fun. Like before, I crafted a shopping list, converted a couple of recipes (from cups- grams, etc.) and had the kitchen all to my self for a full afternoon. First, I made a roast chicken. We bought a random assortment of herbs at the supermarket and I tried preparing a whole chicken without assistance for the first time (and it turned out perfectly). Second, I prepared the classic Mac-&-Cheese recipe from my great grandmother. Like the quesadilla rings that I had made a couple of months before, finding the right cheese was a struggle. I ended up using some unknown "stinky cheese" paired with some gouda cheese which actually tasted spot on. Lastly, since my host family had never heard of it, I made pumpkin pie for desert. Finding canned pumpkin purée was impossible in German supermarkets but eventually at the last minute, my host mother was able to find canned pumpkin chunks submerged in honey. It was not something I had ever seen before, but by straining it, pureeing it myself, and cutting the sugar down a bit to balance out the sweetness, the pie turned out just fine despite tasting a little different.

So far, my host family seems to have been approving of my cooking skills so far, so as long as they keep letting me prepare meals, I would like to expose them to some more of the American recipes that I grew up with before I leave Germany.