Hannah's RYE year in Switzerland: Christmas time in die Schweiz

Christmas in Switzerland was definitely something else, but not in a bad way. I found Christmas here a bit more low key than what I'm used to but I still had a good time. For those of you who know me well you won't be surprised when I say that I left my gift warping until Christmas Eve... little did I know they OPEN their presents on Christmas Eve but nobody thought about telling me... Sooo... I "went to the bathroom" for about half an hour to finish wrapping my presents. I made a photo album for my host parents with pictures of us and things/places we've seen together and things that represent the time I was with them, along with that was a built in letter (in German) and they were really excited about it and I am really happy they liked it. We also had family over and had apero then crepes for dinner. I waited until Christmas morning to open the things my family and friends sent me from back in Canada (squirrel: I was about to say "from back home" but I also feel at home here so I wrote Canada instead). Christmas morning we got up and went to one of my host grandparents house for fondue chinois. Fondue chinois is the typical Swiss Christmas meal and so heres how it works, you have a special pot of boiling water/broth sometimes with veggies and stuff in it and then you have a variety of different raw meats the you cook in this water in low portions at a time. There are a variety of different sauces that you can dip your meat in. Its an endless cycle of deliciousness because as you eat what you have more is cooking and because of the pauses you eat so much and its so magical and great. There are also so many homemade Christmas cookies and I didn't want to be rude and waste anything so I tried one of every flavour and then repeated that everywhere we went. ALSO they light their Christmas tree with real candles!!!! We also sang Christmas carols multiple times a day, three days in a row. I went on a few walks in different places in my Canton and I had lots of fun.