THANKSGIVING!

One of my favorite holidays is Thanksgiving. My family always celebrates with my dad's side of the family and we gather for the extended weekend. On Thanksgiving Day we wake up, eat a wonderful breakfast, and watch the parade. While some cooking has already been done, most of THE meal preparation starts now. We (and I mean practically everyone but me) cook all day and the house couldn't small more incredible. When everything is ready, we give thanks and dig in. Definitely one of the best meals of the year.

I love Thanksgiving because it means two things: family and food, but mostly family. Of course, this year was a little different for me. I wasn't home with my family and I didn't exactly have the traditional feast. It was definitely strange because Thanksgiving Day wasn't really Thanksgiving Day for me. I read about and saw quite a few delicious dinners, but it was just a regular day. It was the weirdest feeling knowing that it was Thanksgiving but not celebrating it at the time.

Instead, Saturday was my Thanksgiving. Another American student and I, along with a Canadian student decided that we wanted to have a dinner. We decided to invite other foreign students and make as traditional of a meal as we could manage. They made a list and checked it twice (oops, wrong holiday) and on Friday we shopped for our Thanksgiving extravaganza. Now this was harder than you might think because France doesn't exactly have everything that we typically use for our holiday meal. For example, there isn't any yams or marshmallows for candied sweet potatoes, no onion crunchy thingies for green bean casserole, and no cranberries for cranberry sauce. At least, not in the store by us. Also no traditional turkey or pumpkins. But, we bought the turkey available to us and a gourd/squash for our pie.

Friday night I had a wonderful time baking an apple pie and a pseudo pumpkin pie with these ladies. And yes mom and dad, I DID help.

Me, Sarah, and Rachel with our pumpkin pie!

Saturday was the big meal.The three of us prepped and cooked from 4 to 7 with the help of another American girl and another girl from Czech Republic. Together we made turkey, colorful carrots, brussels sprouts, salad (with craisins, mandarin oranges, and pecans), mashed potatoes, and homemade apple cider. A pretty impressive feast for never having made a Thanksgiving dinner before. And everything was delicious! We had twelve students come from all over the world (Latvia, Scotland, Canada, Germany, and Norway). Together we spent the evening chatting and stuffing our faces. Two of my favorite things!

Our fabulous meal

It was an extremely different Thanksgiving for me. But it was also a huge success. I couldn't be more thankful for these people that I shared one of my favorite meals with and this incredible time that I get to spend in France. I am truly blessed.