‘Tis the season

Today marks exactly one month and a week since I have been here. The days have been going by really fast. This weekend my host family and I will be moving a couple houses down into a completely new remodeled 4 story house. There’s many things to be looking forward to, like having my own floor in the new house. It’s already December here which is very exciting! I can feel the weather changing ,and it’s getting so much colder. I didn’t think I would like the cold weather that much but it’s actually quite refreshing. The cold is not as bad as I thought it would be.This morning on my way to language class around 8:30 am there was white frost all over the cars and the grass. Something normal to anyone who lives in a place where it gets cold like that. But for me, a girl coming from sunny Los Angeles, California, it was quite an exciting thing to experience.(I’ll let you guess how many pictures I have on my camera roll from today of white frost on the grass.)

Christmas is a big holiday here in Germany. One tradition that my host family has is making christmas cookies. It’s something we also do in America but I would say it’s not as popular as it is here. Making Christmas cookies in December seems to be very popular among German families. Last weekend while my host parents were at the new house working on building furniture I was in charge of watching the two boys and their friends. My host mom made cookie batter the morning of and we set up a little table in the kitchen for the kids to sit at. Once she got me all set up I was then in charge of the kids. It was a little stressful trying to multitask all these things at once. Like trying to make sure the two boys didn’t eat all the sprinkles or the raw cookie dough, putting the cookies in the oven and right after that trying to get the next batch set up for the kids, and then making sure the cookies in the oven didn’t burn. Thankfully one hour and a messy kitchen later everything turned out just fine. So if you’re an au-pair in Germany be ready for some Christmas cookie decorating! I can officially say it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Germany.