American Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Obviously, I love all the food and feasting, but I really love Thanksgiving because it’s the kickoff to the holiday season. Before all the chaos of Christmas starts, it’s just Thanksgiving – a low-stress, low-pressure meal with loved ones. Your last calm, deep breath before the season kicks into full drive. And I also love Thanksgiving because at least in my family, we always wind up picking up a few stray friends for the feast. Friends whose families are far away, old friends of the family and seasonal boyfriends all make their way to our Thanksgiving dinner and I love it because it’s just such a loving, come as you are, everyone is welcome kind of feeling.

Ecuador does not celebrate Thanksgiving, clearly. (Though they do have Black Friday sales, so explain that to me…). And while in the States, we’re used to getting a whole WEEK off from school on Thanksgiving week that was sadly not the case here. We did have to work the whole week, but we did get a half day on Thursday for our actual Thanksgiving. The next day, Friday, the school hosted a Thanksgiving luncheon for the entire campus. Parents were asked to provide all the dishes – turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing, graving, green beans, salad, and desserts. This was a BYOP (Bring Your Own Plate) dinner and we all sat down under huge tents in the courtyard and had a massive meal together. It was actually very well done. And did help alleviate the homesickness I was feeling for my usual Thanksgiving meal.

Friendsgiving 2014

A few days later, we were all able to have a proper Thanksgiving meal with our friends. Which we dubbed, Friendsgiving. On Sunday afternoon, our friends hosted about 20 of us for a Friendsgiving meal. Since most kitchens in Ecuador are pretty small, everyone had to prepare a dish ahead of time and bring it to the party. Justin made three pans of bacon macaroni and cheese and a pan of green bean almandine. Our friend made two turkeys – one roasted in the oven and the other he cleverly cooked by filling the bottom of a gas grill with charcoal and turning into a smoker. We lined up all the tables in the house we could find. We even had the traditional “kids table” which meant that a few people sat on the floor and ate off the coffee table. After the meal, the gang settled down on the couches and floor to watch an NFL game, streamed over the internet via an VPN. Whatever it takes, right? For dessert we had warm, homemade whisky bread pudding. This pretty much put us over the top and Justin and I had to call it a night.

Post-Food, Pre-Coma Watching Football

And while it wasn’t quite as good as having Thanksgiving with my actual family, it was the next best thing.