Aww Christmas time. A time to be with family. Although, I was not with my real family I still felt surrounded by love. It started out with a visit to my first host family and they gave me my christmas present. I didnt open it until Christmas, of course, but it was a backpack that i have wanted since I arrived. There is a kind of swedish backpack that is a super popular trend here and will just always remind of Denmark when I look at it. I couldnt believe that my host family had remembered how badly I wanted it. After getting that wonderful surprise, I went out to my grandmothers house with my host family on christmas eve. Christmas here is similar but not the same at all. The presents are opened on christmas eve and you dance and sing around the christmas tree and santa literally visits, not while you are asleep to deliver presents, he hands them to you. When we were running around the christmas tree singing and dancing there were candles lit on the christmas tree. A HUGE FIRE HAZARD but that didnt stop anything. On the last song we even ran around outside and through the whole house while holding hands. It was so funny and so much fun, my host brother and i couldnt stop laughing. For christmas I got my brother a morphsuit which is a kind of costume that covers your whole body and it was quite the site to see. It was soo funny to see him running around the house in it so pleased with it. I feel really close to my brother. Along with the fun customs, the food was delicious. To start i had caviar with quail eggs on white bread, duck, pork, potatoes, and red cabbage. Then for dessert a rice dish with a little twist. It is rice pudding with chunks of almonds but there is one whole almond in there and we all take scoops of the rice with a little berry dressing. When you eat the pudding you have to find the one whole almond which means sifting through the food in your mouth before eating it and if you find the almond you have to keep it in your mouth but finish your rice dish, quite odd. But whoever has the whole almond gets a little extra present. It involves a lot of joking and odd facial expressions while trying to find the almond. It doesnt help either that you cant eat a lot because the pudding hits your stomach like a rock. I love danish food because it is all so delicious and traditional. The dinner conversation didnt lack either. I had to explain what a muffin top was to my family (fat rolls) which was so funny because they just didnt understand and really were trying to grasp the meaning. Another part of the night that was really different for me was the opening of the presents. In my family my brother and I are the youngest so we always get the most presents and open ours first and are always at the kids table and pass out the gifts to everyone else but for the first time i had three younger cousins. It was Christmas from a whole different perspective. For once, i stayed at the adult table and laughed and talked with them then watched the younger cousins open gifts and oh so patiently waited for them to give me my couple presents. It was so cute to see their joy and i enjoyed this perspective. Speaking of cute things, they had this forty year old turtle that was not shy at all and i was feeding and it fell asleep on my neck and it just was so sweet, i loved it. Even after all that I received the best christmas present of all, a phone call to my mom. Skype is a gift from God but theres something about a scheduled time to talk that takes away the sentimental value of talking so far away. But this time, it was a total surprise. The second she realized it was me she started crying and I started crying but it was so good to hear her voice, I cant even express the joy i felt after hearing her voice over the phone after so long. As if Christmas evening wasnt enough the fun just kept coming. That night Frederik and I watched a movie and talked for a couple hours and I really felt like he was a big brother to me. I feel like I can talk to him and I really enjoy his company. He is the older brother Ive always wanted.
The next morning, Christmas morning, we woke up exhausted but the festivities werent over. It was a little odd for me to wake up and not have christmas presents but my packages from my mom and friend had arrived so it was a little like christmas morning but not exactly the same. Talk about perfect timing though. Later that day we went to my host dad's side of the family. It was much more low key and there were no younger cousins so it was just relaxing to have lunch together and i even got a couple more christmas presents which i wasnt expecting because I really didnt expect to get anything.
Unlike in America christmas here lasts three days. Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the day after Christmas so even on Monday I had something to do. I went with my friend Christina to her family's julefrokost (christmas lunch). I met her whole family and we talked and played cards and also played bingo but it was so different from in America. The cards werent the same and we played for prizes. In the center of the table were a bunch of gifts lined up and the person that won each round got to pick a gift. It was a really neat idea because we teased each other and laughed and it brought us together. I might just have to bring that tradition back home with me.
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