Gingerbread Sleepover with Oma & Opa

Just this past weekend, my host grandparents, who we call Oma and Opa, hosted an all-weekend cousins event. I was invited, of course, now that I’m part of the family. My host siblings, host cousins, and I all went to the annual kids-only gingerbread Christmas sleepover at the grandparents’ house. When we got there on Saturday morning, we were met with a giant breakfast feast of German cold cuts, jams and spreads, croissants, and my favorite fresh bread that is part of almost every meal here. I almost went into a food coma from breakfast alone. 

Then it was time for the main event - building gingerbread houses or in German “Lebkuchenhaus”. Actually, we were given the option of a gingerbread train or a gingerbread house from premade kits they had bought. I chose the house because I feel like that's the quintessential gingerbread structure. 

Gingerbread cookies are a big tradition with my Grandma Joan back in Texas, for Christmas and really almost every holiday from Halloween to Valentine’s Day to my summer camp care packages, but my family doesn’t really have a tradition of building gingerbread houses so this was an exciting opportunity for me to show my skills. 

One new thing for me was that my host grandparents and younger host cousins mixed up our own homemade icing for our gingerbread houses, which is one thousand times better than anything you can buy at the store as far as the taste-to-stickiness ratio. I made an extremely meticulous and elegant gingerbread house, if I do say so myself, and showed up my host sister who didn't believe Americans would have the precision for this type of handywork. I also ate way too much candy because Oma had bought what seemed like the entire candy section at the store to decorate the houses with.

After a few hours of gingerbread, everyone was pretty tired and we decided to just lounge around. Some cousins took a power nap, others played Roblox on their iPads. I read a little more of my current book, which is Dune by Frank Herbert. Then while the grandparents were setting up for dinner, we all played a few rounds of bingo. It was fun except that I lost every round but one. Dinner was hamburgers, which made the American in me very happy. I have one slight complaint with the way the Germans in my life prepare their burgers, which is that a lot of them put curry ketchup on their burgers. This, I feel, should be a crime. 

After dinner, my cousins tried to teach me a card game called “Doppelkopf,” but it made no sense to me. What I did understand is that basically there are four players and certain cards have different values and different strengths and you don't know who your teammate is, but you have to try and figure out by using different cards that signify whose team you’re on. As you can see, very confusing, especially with me trying to communicate in my still-pathetic German and their broken English. 

Since the house isn't all that big, we all shared rooms and I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. I shared a room with my host brother and the host cousin closest in age to him and ended up getting voted to the floor. The downside of being the new guy.

We woke up the next morning to Nikolaustag, or St Nicholas Day. This is a big day for kids in Germany, where you leave out your boot or a stocking and St. Nicholas comes in the night and leaves candy or nuts or other little gifts. After another delightful breakfast, all the cousins traded each other for the best candy we got in our stockings. My favorites were the German version of Almond Joys and the dark chocolate Toblerone. Some of my cousins really liked the Haribo Gummy bears and MOAMs. After the mass candy trade, we all went on a walk through the grandparents’ town, which is about a 20 minute drive from my house. As someone who has never lived closer than NINE HOURS to either set of grandparents, it blows my mind that at 20 minutes away, the grandparents live the farthest away of anyone in the family! 

While on the walk, we found a playground with one of the big table-looking wheels that you can spin people around on. You hardly ever see these at American playgrounds anymore, but I can attest that they are fun for all ages. Of course, in true playground fashion, one of the cousins hit her head when we spun her too fast and she flew off. Luckily, more candy heals almost any playground injury.

We finally headed home after lunch, walking the rest of the way back, with me feeling even more officially part of my huge German family.