Jon travels home for the holidays

Hello, My name is Jon. I'm an American studying English/German linguistics in northern Germany. It's really a dream come true to live and study here, but I need to get back to the US for the holidays to visit my family. I haven't seen them since September 2012. 

The best part of this is my family has no idea that I plan to visit! I hope to fly to the US shortly before Christmas and just appear on their doorstep (My brother is the only one that knows. He'll be picking me up from the airport). I'm honestly hoping that my mom doesn't just have a heart attack when she sees me! She asks me everytime we skype (and this isn't an exaggeration) if I've decided to just come back home.

The goal of this project is 400 Euro. That isn't going to buy a round-trip plane ticket, but I plan to fund the rest as I do have a (small) allowance.