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Bring something, and expect a late start
A German house party starts later than visitors expect — an invitation for eight means people arrive at nine, and the evening may well run past three. Punctuality, so rigid everywhere else, is deliberately relaxed here, and turning up exactly on time at a private party can catch the host mid-shower. You bring something: a crate of beer, a bottle of wine, something for the table. Arriving empty-handed is noticed. If it is a birthday, remember the rule from Lesson 22 — no congratulations before the day, and the birthday person often hosts and pays rather than being taken out. Two customs that surprise people. Reinfeiern means celebrating into the birthday at midnight, which is the one moment early congratulation becomes allowed. And a Polterabend, held the evening before a wedding, involves guests smashing crockery for luck, with the couple sweeping it up together — porcelain only, never glass, which is said to bring the opposite.