Well, it’s past mid-December and I really enjoyed the Christmas and celebration time.

My weeks were full of activities like baking cookies, buying gifts and attending Christmas parties and shows.

In addition to that, I had cheer practice twice a week along with one game. I’m so happy that I am a cheerleader now.

About two months ago, my host family and I went to Virginia to celebrate Thanksgiving with their family. We had traditional Thanksgiving foods such as, turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I tried everything except for the turkey because I am a pescatarian. Anyway, the food was very delicious and I ate a lot.

After the big meal, we played a game together which was a lot of fun. I can’t remember the name of the game, but the activity included pantomime and guessing words.

The family also had two little boys, which were very entertaining.

The next day was Black Friday. I had the opportunity to see what Black Friday is like here in the USA. I was very interested to see if it was as crazy as I had seen on TV or read about.

So my host sister, another exchange student from Germany, and I went shopping. We started around 7 a.m., not too early. The outlets we went to had opened 7 hours earlier but we decided not to go until the morning, which turned out to be a good decision. The shops weren’t too crowded and we were able to shop “normally”.

However, around 10 a.m. more and more people came and the shops became more crowded. The experience wasn’t so relaxed anymore, because there were long lines inside and sometimes in front of the stores. But that was okay because I had already bought lots of stuff (Christmas gifts) and then I got the feeling and sense what Black Friday is like.

If you want to experience Black Friday with people running, freaking out, screaming, you have to go places like Walmart or Target at midnight.

After Black Friday, every store had been playing Christmas music all day and everyone was extremely ready for Christmas. I was also very excited and couldn’t wait to celebrate the festivities as well.

I was confident we’d have a lot fun, and I was not disappointed.