Gifts for host family in Germany?
 

My grandniece ?? Renae is going to spend three weeks with a host family in Germany. The teenaged German daughter spent time with my niece's family, so this is a return visit for Renae.

My niece (Julie) asked me for suggestions for gifts for the mother, the father, and two older sisters. She thought she might make a quilted wall hanging and perhaps crocheted bookmarks or crocheted ornaments, but she doesn't really know what would be suitable.

Julie is a very talented seamstress, and I think she'd like to do something handmade, but she'd welcome any suggestions.

Anyone have an idea? Could be anything, not necessarily handmade.

Get to your local supermarket! bring jelly spreads, mustard, salsa, coffee, pancake mix, maple syrup, banana bread mix, cocoa mix, Orvile R. popocorn, etc... In summary, American brands of everyday food; have her cook them breakfast the first morning there! This is what my German friends take home when they visit me in the USA.

I think that handmade things are lovely! Try a small gift, unwrapped--in case the TSA takes a look at the suitcase. A small (about 9x11) wallhanging is personal and would be a welcome gift. I disagree about the food things, most named are heavy and encased in glass-could be a disaster! For the older sisters, try the cosmetic counter at a nice department store. You may find small samples to take over. Make sure that all liquid type things are encased in ziploc bags in case of a leak. Where is your relative going? Taking a trip to a nearby grocery there and purchasing a special something for dinner, etc. is also a nice gesture. I sent both my kids with "Thank you" cards to write up and leave the last day of the visit and also for something special such as an extra trip, etc.

Obviously, packaging them well should be a no-brainer....but heck...what do my German friends know, right?

Viajero,

i think that what we might choose to take home is rather different to what we might like to receive as a present. for example, when I visit Germany I like to buy some ready made Späztle to bring home with me, but I'd be a bit surprised to get them as a present.

IMHO something unique and home made would be lovely, peg.

As a German who often travels to US I would say that there is a difference whether I take an effort to shlep home my favorite foodstuff, or what I would expect from a kid traveling with all the luggage she already has to take care of.
I think no responsible adult would expect a kid to bring a truckload of stuff across the Atlantic.
I would not make a big fuss about it, especially since your grandniece already had her own ideas (which sound more than nice, and are probably easy to pack).

I like the idea of something handmade, but to supplement that is there anything from your area that you would consider a specialty? We sometimes take Australian wine, once we took some kookaburra handpuppets for the kids, and so on. It varies a bit as we tend to see the same people, but we haven't run out of local things yet, and we do draw on the foodstuffs a bit. A coffee-table book with aerial photos from your part of the world...?

Lavandula

My friend's daughter lives in Berlin. They have wonderful food items. Much better than ours due to the German purity laws. Her requests are always for bisquick (for pancakes), salsa and reduced fat wheat thins.

I think the homemade items sound nice especially if she is talented at making them.

gomiki wrote -- "Her requests are always for bisquick (for pancakes), salsa and reduced fat wheat thins."--

Thank you. I rest my case.

Viajero, I am not sure you get the point.
If I was living in the US (and had no access to foodstuff from Germany) I would probably also have my 3-5 things I wanted if someone visited.
That would not make those items universally loved gifts.
It is also nonsense to deduct from seeing all your German friends buying the oddest US foodstuff that it would also make a good gift (compare annhig's comment which is spot on).
I don't know what that guest family likes to eat, but a package of pancake mix is a highly unusual gift (unless you knew for sure that that family wanted nothing more than that). And I would seriously refrain from bringing reduced fat wheat thins -- that will probably get more than just one good laugh.
If foodstuff was a must, I would pack a box of local chocolates.

Gifts for hosts are really a low-maintanence issue in Germany.
No one expects the visiting party to go through any ordeals.
Unless you have knowledge of your hosts preferences, the very basic gilfts like flowers, wine, chocolates would be considered 100 percent proper etiquette.
Those handmade souvenirs the kid has in mind would be considered a huge effort by German etiquette, much more than anyone would expect.

I appreciate the comments and will forward this thread to my niece. I especially appreciate Cowboy's comments, since he is a German who visits the US. However, I also liked the idea of a coffee table book, since my niece lives in a beautiful part of the world--in the Seattle area.

As I said, I'll forward this thread, but it sounds to me like the handmade stuff and the book would be ideal.

I've sent this thread to my niece, but I wanted to describe what she made for the sons of a friend from Dubai for a visit.

She made two quilts for spreading on the floor. The quilts had roads, a river, and little houses appliqued on to the fabric. The two quilts fit together so that they made one larger quilt. Then they gave the little boys hot wheels cars to play with on the quilts.

The little boys loved the quilt/map things and immediately sat down to play with their hot wheels on the quilt.

My niece explained that the background of one side of each quilt was green for the grass in America and the other side was tan for the sand of the UAE.

peg - those quilts sound wonderful. She's clearly very talented and I'm sure her hosts will be thrilled with her gifts for them.

for those less talented, another idea is the gift AFTER the trip - while you are there [or when you get home] set up a flower delivery for the hosts as a thank you. by then you may have a bit of an idea of their tastes and can tailor you gift accordingly.

I am a German native who has been living in the US for more than 30 years. My family and (old) friends are still living in Germany. I go back once a year to visit my family and always try to come up with different small gifts to take. In the past, I have taken the (premeasured) ingredients for making chocolate chip cookies and baked them there. I have taken buffalo jerky (since we live in Colorado) and one year I took little maple-leaf bottles of maple syrup.

My advice, for what it's worth, is that anything hand-made by your niece would be right on top of my list of gifts to take. It's a wonderful and personal gift that I am sure will be much appreciated. Food can be tricky because most of what we have here is now readily available in Germany, too. Same with chocolate which is much better (I think) in Europe than it is here. But something like cooking a breakfast for the family with American pancakes, maybe bacon, etc. would definitely be a good idea. You don't have to carry a whole package of pancake mix or a big bottle of syrup - just enough for cooking one big breakfast. For that matter, you can make the pancakes from scratch - all the ingredients are available in Germany. I have not yet seen "real" bacon in German grocery store, at least not in the smaller ones that I usually go to. I've also taken some cheeses in the past - one of my personal favorite is pepperjack which is not available in Germany. If you freeze the bacon and then wrap it in aluminum foil in your suitcase, it will stay cold until you get there. I have taken a big brick of pepperjack several times, wrapped in foil with a small cold pack by it, and it worked fine. Of course, each time I did, I had a note in my suitcase saying that it had been opened - I am sure they thought it was plastic explosive!

There may be other items that are specific to the Seattle area. For example, here in Colorado, Indian crafts are everywhere. I still don't think they would beat out the personal touch, though.

Hopefully that helped a bit - and maybe somebody can give me some ideas of what to take to Germany this year since I've pretty much already done everything I could think of! :-)

nice ideas, iilka, but the OP's DGD has been and come back!