Learn Hardcore German: Zu Weihnachten besuchen wir meine Oma und meinen Opa auf dem Land. - At Christmas we visit my grandma and grandpa in the countryside.

zu
- a time expression can mean at (the time of):
  - zu Weihnachten – at Christmastime
  - zu Ostern – at Easter
Grammatically, Weihnachten is in the dative case after zu, but you don’t see any ending here because Weihnachten has the same form in several cases.

You could also hear:

an Weihnachten – also “at Christmas”, a bit more neutral/standard
Weihnachten besuchen wir … – literally “Christmas we visit …”, also fine.

All three are correct; zu Weihnachten sounds very natural and idiomatic.

Why is the verb order besuchen wir and not wir besuchen after Zu Weihnachten?

German main clauses usually follow the verb‑second rule (V2): the conjugated verb must be in second position, not necessarily the second word.

Basic order: Wir besuchen meine Oma.
(Wir = element 1, besuchen = element 2 / verb in 2nd place)

When you move a time expression to the front for emphasis, it takes the first position, and the subject moves after the verb:

Zu Weihnachten (1st position) besuchen (2nd position, verb) wir (3rd position, subject) …

Both are correct:

Wir besuchen zu Weihnachten meine Oma …
Zu Weihnachten besuchen wir meine Oma …

The difference is mainly focus/emphasis.

Why is it meine Oma but meinen Opa? Why does mein- change?

The endings change because of case and gender.

The verb besuchen takes a direct object in the accusative case.
Oma is feminine, Opa is masculine.
The possessive mein- behaves like ein- and gets different endings:
- Feminine accusative: meine Oma
- Masculine accusative: meinen Opa

Mini-table for mein- (singular, nominative vs. accusative):

Masculine:
- Nominative: mein Opa (subject)
- Accusative: meinen Opa (object)
Feminine:
- Nominative: meine Oma
- Accusative: meine Oma (same form)

So in this sentence both Oma and Opa are direct objects (accusative), which gives meine Oma and meinen Opa.

Why is it meine Oma / meinen Opa and not die Oma / den Opa?

The speaker is talking about their own grandparents, so they use a possessive (my) instead of a definite article (the).

meine Oma – my grandma
meinen Opa – my grandpa

You could grammatically say die Oma und den Opa, but that usually means “the grandma and the grandpa” in a more general or context-specific sense, not clearly your grandma and grandpa.

For close family members, it’s very normal to say meine Oma, mein Opa, meine Mutter, mein Vater, etc.

What does auf dem Land mean exactly? Is it literally “on the land”?

Literally, auf dem Land is “on the land”, but idiomatically it means “in the countryside” / “in a rural area”.

auf dem Land wohnen – to live in the countryside
aufs Land fahren – to go (out) to the countryside

Be careful with the difference:

auf dem Land (dative) – in the countryside (location)
im Land (in dem Land) – in the country / in the nation (e.g. Germany, France)

So here auf dem Land means your grandparents live in a rural area, not just “in the country” as in “Germany vs. abroad”.

What case is dem Land, and why is that case used?

dem Land is dative singular (neuter).

auf is a two-way preposition (Wechselpräposition):
- with dative for location (where?)
- with accusative for direction (where to?)
Here, we are talking about location: they visit their grandparents there, in the countryside, not going to the countryside in this phrase.

So:

auf dem Land – on/in the countryside (where?) → dative
aufs Land (auf das Land) – (going) to the countryside (where to?) → accusative

That’s why it’s dem and not das.

Why is it just besuchen and not zu … besuchen or besuchen gehen?

In German, besuchen is a simple transitive verb: it directly takes an object without a preposition.

Wir besuchen meine Oma und meinen Opa. – We visit my grandma and grandpa.

You do not say:

✗ Wir besuchen zu meiner Oma.
✗ Wir besuchen zu meiner Oma und meinem Opa.

If you want to use gehen or fahren, then you need zu:

Wir gehen zu meiner Oma. – We go to my grandma’s (place).
Wir fahren zu meinen Großeltern. – We drive to my grandparents.

So: besuchen + Akkusativ, no extra preposition.

Can the time expression go later, e.g. Wir besuchen zu Weihnachten meine Oma …? Is that still correct?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct.

Both are fine:

Zu Weihnachten besuchen wir meine Oma und meinen Opa auf dem Land.
Wir besuchen zu Weihnachten meine Oma und meinen Opa auf dem Land.

In both cases, the finite verb is in second position:

1st version: Zu Weihnachten (1st element) – besuchen (2nd element / verb)
2nd version: Wir (1st element) – besuchen (2nd element / verb)

The difference is mainly which part is emphasized first: the time (Zu Weihnachten) or the subject (Wir).

Can I leave out the second mein- and say meine Oma und Opa?

That sounds unnatural and incomplete in German.

You usually have one of these:

meine Oma und mein Opa (both in nominative)
meine Oma und meinen Opa (both in accusative, as in your sentence)
meine Großeltern – my grandparents (a very natural alternative)

If you just say meine Oma und Opa, listeners will notice the missing word “mein” and it will sound like a mistake. In German, you normally repeat the possessive if the nouns are not the same gender/case form.

What is the difference between Oma/Opa and Großmutter/Großvater?

Oma / Opa are informal, affectionate words, like “grandma / grandpa” in English.
Großmutter / Großvater are more formal and neutral, like “grandmother / grandfather”.

In everyday speech, especially when talking about your own family, people almost always say Oma and Opa.

You might hear Großmutter / Großvater in:

very formal contexts,
written texts (e.g. official forms),
or when you’re speaking about someone else’s grandparents more distantly.

Why are Weihnachten, Oma, Opa, Land all capitalized?

In German, all nouns are capitalized, and Weihnachten is a proper noun (the name of a holiday).

Weihnachten – name of a festival → capitalized
Oma, Opa, Land – all nouns → capitalized

Even when a word is used as a noun but comes from another word type, it gets a capital letter (e.g. das Gute, im Allgemeinen). So capitalization is a strong clue that a word is functioning as a noun.

The sentence is in the present tense. Can it really talk about the future, or should it be werden … besuchen?

German often uses the present tense to talk about the near or planned future, especially with a time expression.

Zu Weihnachten besuchen wir meine Oma …
= We are visiting / we will visit my grandma (at Christmas).

You can say:

Zu Weihnachten werden wir meine Oma und meinen Opa besuchen.

This is also correct, but often sounds a bit more formal or emphasizes the futurity more strongly. In everyday speech, the simple present + time expression is usually enough to express a planned future action.