I walked into the house and immediately saw my brother (24 years old) with a package, a brown cardboard cube reinforced with duct tape, in his hands. "Why do you have something from Germany?" He asked. Apparently, he had been waiting for me to come home so he could ask this.

I instantly felt my face split into a grin. The kind of grin that belongs on disappearing cats and mad men.

Together, we opened the box. Newspaper (German newspaper!) had been rolled into balls to fill up the space. For a while I just unrolled the balls and skimmed over the small print, despite not knowing any German. It was fascinating to see something in the familiar format of a newspaper that was completely inaccessible to me. One of my triplet sisters joined us. I began to look at the actual gifts.

The gifter had included a beautiful red shawl patterned with blue stars, a box of kinder chocolate, a package of chocolate squares (ritter sport), vollmilch Schokolade am Stiel (I don't actually know what this is), a cute and motivating notebook, haribo bears and sour worms, star shaped soap (that I at first thought was candy), and tea! I love tea.

A card was also included. I wish you a Merry Christmas too, /u/TheOneAndOnlyTristan. Thank you for the gift. Danke.