American Christmas

The Christmas time this year started for me like every year at the December 1st with my German "Adventskalender" my mother sent me. I was really happy about having this tradition from my German house in America. 

GERMAN CHRISTMAS

Since my English got better and my thoughts are most of the time in English, my German writing style gets worse ( I know that's embarrassing, but sometimes I can't even remember some special german words), I'm starting to write my Blog in English, at least sometimes. So then there are also some american readers who don't know how German Christmas looks like. 

So in my family on the Christmas Day (that's in Germany the 24th December) in the morning normally comes the music club from my town and they play some christmas songs with their instruments. They come to our house, because my grandfather used to be the mayor of my town Niederstotzingen. At around 3.00 pm we usually eat "Coffee and Cake" with my Grandma and my Grandpa, sometimes even my Uncle ( he lives  about 4 hours ride south of my town) comes for the Christmas Days.  At around 7.00 pm we eat dinner ( a tradition is Fondue or "Pasteten"), after the Dinner we open the presents (it's "Bescherung" called). After that we sit in a nice round and talk, drink wine and sometimes we play some board games. At the next two days ( 1st and 2nd Christmas day) we normally visit family. At the 1st Christmas Day (25th) we normally go for a really big lunch to my Grandma's house and eat goose. 

CHRISTMAS EVE

So back to my american experience. At the 24th at the time when my family has their Christmas Dinner, it was around 12.00 pm in America and I was lying in my bed watching German series and was trying not to think about my family being all together. Happily my little host sister came in my room soon and asked me if I want to make snowflakes with her. So she and my other host sister Ash showed me how to cut it.

The snowflake Saige and I made

After my Host parents came home, we went to the mall for food and started cooking Dinner. First we had Cheese Fondue, then we had Broth Fondue ( Broth=Brühe) and for Dessert we had Chocolate Fondue.

Cheese Fondue

Broth Fondue

Chocolate Fondue

After the Dinner we all played the board game "The Seattlers of Catan" together. Don't ask what color I was, because I had the last place.

This here is is the plate my little host sister Saige prepared for Santa Claus and his Rendeers.

THE CHRISTMAS DAY

My little host sister woke me up at the Christmas Day at around 8.00 am. Then we went downstairs and "Santa Clause" brought a lot of presents how you can see on the picture above.

We also had some american stockings where we found candy and little presents in it.

The Women in the house. My host mother Julie, my host sisters Saige and ashley and I

Look what I got from Santa: a case for my new laptop and accessories.

After packing out about the half of the presents we ate Breakfast together. We had home fries and casserole.

How I looked like on the Christmas Day

For dinner on the christmas Day we went to Mike's Mothers's House. 

That's the view from my "Hostgrandma"'s porch.  Her yard is huge!

That was my plate of the Christmas Dinner. It was amazing. I had Salad, Mac 'n Cheese, Croissant, mashed potatoes, deviled egg, prime rip

This was a drink at her house, and the stars and trees and the snowmen were ice cubes. That looked really funny.

After Dinner, we drunk coffee and ate apple pie and cookies.

Me and Mike's Sister's Baby

After we came home, we played the Board Game again and then my host sister Marina came home from Rhode Island. I was so happy that I saw her again. After she came home, we were opening all the other presents.

My Mom sent me from Germany a pillow with the picture of my cat on it.

The Presents I got

Ashley painted me a really cute picture for christmas.

THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

At the Day after Christmas the Sun was shining in Delaware. At home in Germany it was snowing the first time this winter.

For Breakfast we had Casserole again, because Marina couldn't eat it with us at the day before, because she had to work.

I  really enjoyed my first american Christmas. Actually it didn't feel too different. It was just Christmas far away from home.

I really didn't expect that I would get so many present's from my host family. I felt like a real part of the family. The days around Christmas were really amazing. we did so many things together and I felt comfortable. 

I was actually a bit scared for Christmas, because I thought I would get homesick, but it was really okay, because I had my own family of choice.

December is going on

December 13th:

We went to a really nice house from a man from my organization called Rotary for a Christmas Brunch. I met all the other exchange students again and we had a great time.  How you can see, we also met "Santa Claus".

Everyone had the chance to sit on Santa's lap and whisper their biggest wish for christmas in his ear.

This is my friend Ben, from South Korea, and me at the Christmas Brunch

The Rotary Family, we went to, prepared cookie dough for all the exchange student to bake cookies together. We made sugar cookies (Ausstecheler). Some of the exchange students haven't ever done this before.

Sugar Cookies

This weekend my "hostcousin", his girlfriend and their Baby visited us. I fell in love with the Baby and his Eyes.

Finally I'm an official student at the Middletown Highschool, because I have a student ID (Schulausweis).

Not a lot of news, but soon I'm going to write about my american christmas! I'm really excited for it.

New York City

OnThursday I finally met all the other exchange students. The District I live in has no exchange students other than me, so I made a trip with another District from Pennsylvania. They all knew each other before, so I was "The new Girl".

They come all around the world. From South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Chile, France, Italy, Sweden and Germany.

They were all so nice and I already miss them. 

We had a really great time together in New York City and I enjoyed it so much.

We took this picture at the Time Square at the end of the day.

Andy, Justus, Lala, Me, André, Salomé, Anna, Giulietta, Paulina, Paula

This is the St. Patrick's Cathedrale. We went in there but weren't allow to take pictures, so I have just one from the outside. It is really pretty!

We walked through New York and had a wonderful city view. I couldn't stop taking pictures!  If you want to see more pictures I took in there, you can find them on my Flickr Account.

At the last picture (on top of this paragraph) you can see the big christmas tree in front of the underground mall. When we walked in the underground Mall we could see people doing ice skating on the place next to the tree. It looked like fun. And they just did it in the middle of the City!

 After walking a bit through the city, we went to Radio City and watched a show from the famous ROCKETTES. They had an amazing dance show with the theme "Christmas". So they danced to Christmas Music and danced the Christmas Story. They Picture above this paragraph is the story of the Nutcracker and it looked really funny because they were all standing in one line and then they let themselves fall into the line so that at the end the whole line was lying on each other. 

After the show we went to the Times Square. To be honest I imagined it a bit different, but it was awesome and better than I imagined it. On this picture we are all on a screen at the Times Square. That was really cool. You can see me at the left bottom corner with my red camera in front of my face. 

At the Time Square were also a Hard Rock Café. We could take a little view in it, so I took a picture. But sadly we couldn't stay long, because we were in a rush, because we had a full schedule.

André from Brazil, Me and Salomé from France

It was an awesome day and I met great people! I can't wait to see them again und explore more of America!!

Thanksgiving

Von Mittwoch bis Sonntag hatte ich Thanksgiving-Ferien, die ich sehr genossen habe.

Schon bereits Samstag Nacht kam Marina, meine ältere Gastschwester, heim. Ich habe mich sehr gefreut, dass ich sie endlich wiedergesehen habe. Dadurch, dass Marina wieder daheim war, gab es gutes Essen, denn sie hat nun ihren Collegeabschluss als Kochchef. 

Montag nach der Schule waren wir etwas Shoppen, weil ich mehr warme Klamotten gebraucht habe. In den letzten Tagen hat es übrigens schon geschneit und es ist richtig widerlich kalt!

Am Mittwoch hatten wir dann endlich Ferien und somit haben wir nach Rezepten geschaut, die wir für Thanksgiving benutzen könnten. 

Danach waren wir bei Wal-Mart und haben groß für Thanksgiving Essen eingekauft. Dann haben wir angefangen zu backen. Zwei Kürbis Pies, ein Aprikosen-Käsekuchen und ein Blaubeerkuchen und für den kommenden Abend ein Adventstiramisu, dessen Rezept mir meine Mama geschick hat.

Mittwochabend kamen dann auch Julies Eltern und Ashley's Cousin.

An Thanksgiving hat Marina den ganzen Tag gekocht und hat sich nicht helfen lassen. Zum Lunch/Früchstück haben wir Kürbis-Brot-Pudding, was in Kürbissoße eingeweichtes Brot war, des im Backofen gebacken wurde. 

Um ca. 16.00 Uhr gab es dann schon Dinner.

Thanksgiving Tisch

Stuffing

Mac n' Cheese

sowas wie Kartoffelbrei, nur dass es mit süßen Kartoffel gemacht ist.

Kartoffelbrei

Das war mein Teller: Turkey mit Cranberry-Soße, Kartoffelbrei, Wecken, Stuffing und Mac n' Cheese

Anschließend haben wir noch ein Spiel gespielt und dann war's Zeit zum SHOPPEN!!!

In der Nacht von Thanksgiving auf den Freitag danach gibt es "Black Friday Shopping". Da gibt es in jedem Laden ca. 40-60% oder irgendwelche speziellen Schnäppchen.

Als erstes sind wir zu Wawa gefahren um Kaffee zu holen. Danach gings los zur Christiana Mall. Auf dem Weg dorthin haben wir Weihnachtsmusik gehört, weil es in meiner Gastfamilie anscheinend Tradition ist, dass man ab der Thanksgiving Nacht und generell auf der Fahrt zum Black Friday Shopping, Weihnachtsmusik hört

In der Mall war es total überfüllt und es gab lange Schlangen zu den Kassen in den Läden. Um ca. 2.00 Uhr in der Nacht waren wir dann zu Hause.

Als wir bei Walmart waren hab ich diese Colaflaschen gesehen, die in Christbaumkugeln-Form waren.