December

So I've now moved in with my second host family, (I've actually been living with them for almost a month now) and I love them just as much as my first family! I finally have a sister, Lise, something I've begged my parents for my entire life, and my younger brother Stig is hilarious. They were originally supposed to be my first family, but they were switched to my second because they live closer to the school so it's easier for me to bike there in the winter with all of the snow. Speaking of, we have a ton of snow in Denmark now! They rarely have a white Christmas (I think they told me this was the third time in the past 40 years they've had a snow for Christmas) so this is something special! We've got about a half meter of snow covering the ground, but since it's so windy here, there's huge drifts that are over a meter high. Usually when they get snow here, it disappears after a few days, but there's been snow here since the end of November. Christmas time here is adorable, though, and with all of the snow, it's even better! Unfortunately, Denmark is completely flat, so there's no place to go downhill skiing or snowboarding. But I have been out cross country skiing several times and the scenery is gorgeous!
I've been on winter break since last Friday, and the other 3 exchange students at my gymnasium and I were asked to give some sort of presentation on the last day. So we put together a little Christmas film! We shared it with the whole school at our Christmas assembly, and it was really fun! We also danced around the Christmas tree at school (a Danish Christmas tradition) and we sang songs and had a hyggelig time! You can watch the video at the bottom :)
Tomorrow is Christmas here, though! They celebrate Christmas the evening of the 24th, so it'll be interesting to wake up on the 25th and already have opened all of my presents. But Stig is going to wait until the 25th to open his presents; he says he wants to try it the "American style". We'll see if he can actually wait that long :)
One more little update, I get to start taking guitar lessons after New Years! I'm so excited for this, and Rotary has even offered to pay for my lessons. How amazing :) I love Rotary, and I love my year here in Denmark! Congrats to all of the students back home who just found out which country they'll be going to next year! It honestly will be the most amazing year of your life.



Glædelig Jul! Merry Christmas!
-Heidi