I wrote this post a while back and promptly banished it to the draft folder because I just didn’t think it was ready. Or right. Or something. Today, I was thinking about what to write and ideas shimmered in front of me, only to float away on a cloud of frustration. Then, I remembered this post and decided to expand on it a little and give you a snap-shot of my family.

Hubby’s grandma, who has graced this earth for 85 years now, likes to call her family a league of nations. Her son, my father-in-law, is married to a Brazilian woman. She came here a number of years ago from Rio de Janeiro. Grandma’s daughter, hubby’s aunt, married a Canadian from Vancouver, and they live in far away Kullu, India. Kullu is a town in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. Last, but not least, hubby married me, a German. Almost, German-American!!! I’m the last of the “foreigners” to get my citizenship.

So, this is her little “league of nations”. I’m sure that this is a fairly common occurrence in many families in this country. America, after all, is known as a melting pot–some regions more so than others. It still is a very interesting phenomenon for me. I grew up in a tiny village about two hours south of Berlin. Everyone knew who you were and what you were up to. I wasn’t used to having this mix of people and nations around me and it was very over-whelming at first.

I’m lucky enough that my parents are here with me. They live about two hours away on the west coast of Florida. I know many people, some of them friends I went to school with, who are here without any family around. Little sis went back to Germany with her husband, who is American but was born in Poland. My niece who was just born earlier this year has dual-citizenship. She’s both German and American.

My children who were all born here in the US also have dual-citizenship. They were born on American soil and have an American father, so they are by proxy American. But because when they were all born I was still a German national, they also have German citizenship.

Put it all together and you get a pretty eclectic mix of people and attitudes. It makes for an interesting get-together.

What about you and your family? Do you have a family that you would consider your very own “league of nations”?