The Expat Thanksgiving

I think I've only been away from home for 3 Thanksgivings. The first was during my student exchange to England during high school. The People-to-People group (their part of the Sister Cities Int’l group) threw us a Thanksgiving dinner which I find very funny, since it seems almost an anti-England holiday. The second was just a few years ago when Guitarman and I went to visit his parents in Florida for the holiday. And then this year.



We had a very lovely dinner at Christina’s. It’s an annual tradition for them to invite local Americans & other assorted friends to the Expat Thanksgiving Dinner. It was an interesting collection of people... about 1/2 American and about 1/2 other, I’d guess. I had a nice chat with the German neighbors, who were talking about how Germany doesn’t really have an equivalent holiday with a celebration & food and all of that. They seemed to really enjoy our holiday.

And the food was fabulous. Everyone brought a dish to share. And far from being a replica of all of the traditional American Thanksgiving foods (green bean casserole, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top) it was a fantastic spread of all sorts of international flavors. Yum. The stuffing was made with apples & sage, for example. I brought a curry-butternut squash soup that was yummy. I overheard a couple of remarks about it, one of which was a wife to her husband, “Here, you’ve got to try this soup,” which was followed by a brief chat about how he’d have never thought to put cilantro with it but that it really worked. So yay me. Or rather, yay Allrecipes.com.

I’ve learned that my kid is a natural problem solver. Ok, I already knew that. But isn’t it much more fun when I make it seem like you’re along with me on this journey of learning fun things about my son? Remember, he's just shy of 3. Anyway, he was trying to get a container of toys through the baby gate but it wouldn’t fit. So he tries again and still no luck. So he slides the container up to the top of the gate and reaches over to grab it. Genius, I tell you. ;)