Christmas in Chemnitz

This year, I spent Christmas with my host family in Chemnitz. The summer between junior and senior year of highschool I spent a couple weeks with them and we've stayed in touch ever since so I hung out with them for a week and a half. It was really nice.
I got in on the 23th (Wednesday) and my host sister and her fiance did as well (Nicole and Dominik). My host father (Gerald) picked up from the train station and we went back to the house and had dinner and unpacked and hung out, caught up. Germany has a lot of dialects and my host family speaks Saxon, which means for the first couple of days I didn't really understand a whole lot of what they said.
On the 24th (Thursday) we celebrated Christmas and the whole family came over. Jana and Sylvio (aunt and uncle; Jana is Anja's sister), Billy (Jana's son), Opa and Oma, and myself and Anja and Gerald (host mom and dad). Nicole and Dom were with his family. We exchanged gifts, sang Christmas songs in German and English, and had a good time.
The next day we went over the Sylvio's and played Wii and ate a lot of food and drank lots of coffee and the men smoked a lot. We skyped with my parents. It was really good to see them. They were just opening Christmas gifts due to the time difference so they were all really sleepy. My german family sang them a song and we talked for a bit then went back to playing Wii. I fell asleep on the couch, following Grandpa Bob's example, and we finally ended up going home.
The next day (Saturday) we watched Cinderella in German, but it was the Czech version of the story which I hadn't known before. It was fun. Then after breakfast and ridiculous amounts of coffee (a common theme over my Christmas break) we watched almost the entire season 1 of Ally Mcbeal. It was a very nice relaxing day.
On Sunday, Sylvio took me skiing. It was Sylvio, Billy, Jana, Andrea (Sylvio's daughter) and myself. We went to Oberwiesenthal and it wasn't the best skiing but it was fun and a good wind down thing to do. We only skiied a half day and Billy kept taunting me and telling me that he was better, but he so wasn't. He eventually caved in and admitted that I was right. Later than day, we went back to Sylvios and played more Wii and the rest of the family came over and we had more coffee and more sweets and Billy, Andrea, and I ended up falling asleep cuz we were so tired. Another successful day. :)
The next three days we successfully did nothing. We went shopping, drank lots and lots of coffee, ate really good breakfasts and watched movies and Ally Mcbeal and Gilmore Girls and ate more really good food and drank more coffee.
On the 30th, Billy (cousin) drove up from Sayda (where he lives) and picked Nicole, Dominik and I up and we drove to the Czech Republic to pick up Boeller, large explosive bomb-like fireworks. They're cheaper in the Czech Republic and apparently you can stuff that's illegal in Germany. The parents left for Stuttgart to celebrate New Years with family friends so it was just Billy, Dominik, Nicole and I. We stayed in Jana's house and played Wii, ate pizza, etc. They made me watch me "Paranormal Activity", which consisted of me huddled up under blankets the entire time. It wasn't watching so much as listening.
The next day was Sylvester but that will take another blog post. :)
Love everyone! Hope everyone had happy holidays and a Merry Christmas.
Emily