Our family came from Switzerland for Christmas and we were a little worried.
Not because our house is small, with one tiny bathroom on the ground floor.
Not because we have only one bedroom and they all had to sleep in the lounge on one fold out single bed, one 3 seater couch, and one blow up double mattress.
Not because we are all used to very different foods and we certainly are – Our family in Europe consists of two New Zealanders (JJ and Morgan), one Dane (me), one Chilean (Angelica), and 2 Chilean/Swiss (Ruedi and Rolf).
Not because we do not have a TV or any games for boys.
Our worry was that we have no common language and being in our tiny house and all the pressure that Christmas itself can create, things could have been fraught.
Ruedi and Rolf speak Swiss German and Spanish, and Ruedi is learning English and French at school; Morgan speaks Swiss German, High German and English and understands some Spanish; JJ speaks English, some French, some Dutch; Angelica speaks Spanish and Swiss German, and has some English and I speak English and fairly good Danish and very poor Dutch.
Our meal time conversations were all over the place and when we were out trying to show the boys things or alert them to something was great fun, if tiring at times.
JJ, the boys, and I went and fed the birds early in the morning – well at about 9. On the way back I walked arm in arm with Ruedi – and he is 13 and very tall, and I am over sixty and fairly short. He looked down at me and said “lady”, I answered pointing at him “man” and he said “no!” long pause and he said “Gentleman”. JJ was walking/dancing in front of us with Rolf – and I said “Old Man” (he is over 64 after all) and he said “No!”, I said hmmm what about “Funny Man” and he said yes.
We had a great time and the boys were great fun to be with and the language stuff was nothing at all in the end.
Tags: celebrations, family, Haarlem, house, language
