Fakesgiving and No Fire

You would think that my Thanksgiving this year would be less stressful than last year’s because now I now what I’m doing…wrong.  This year’s Thanksgiving was a lot harder to organize in terms of getting people to all be able to come on the same date.  After weeks of throwing around everyday in the month of November as a possibility for Fakesgiving, we finally decided on, go figure, Thanksgiving Day.  Originally about 15 people were invited, but in the end, only 7 could make it.  Good thing too, 15 would have been a ridiculous amount of guests in our apartment.

The week started off with grocery shopping. For this, it was really good that I had done Thanksgiving here last year…I knew exactly what shops to go to to get certain things.  Turkey? Check.  I made sure I said “PECHUGA de pavo” about a million times, so the guy didn’t think I wanted a whole turkey, a funny (and probably costly for the butcher) mistake from last year.  After days of grocery shopping, on Tuesday night I began making the two pumpkin pies.  Everything was going great until I put the pies in the oven…immediately the tops started to burn and, no matter how much I turned the oven temperature down, they just kept burning.  That was when I realized our oven is the worst.

Improvising a little, I managed to save the pies.  They didn’t look very nice, but I knew I could just cover them with whip cream and no one would be the wiser.  But, now knowing that the oven can’t really cook things, I sent out the call to see if we could use anyone else’s oven…no luck. In the end, we were going to just have to make do with ours.

Thursday morning, I got up nice and early to pick up a few last minute things, and then I set to work.  I had to go teach from 4.00 to 9.00 in the afternoon, so Whitney would have to be the one to put everything in the oven.  Whitney herself has said many times that she’s not a cook.  So, I was a little bit nervous as to how everything would turn out.  I spend Thursday before work prepping everything.  I got the green bean casserole together, made the cranberry sauce, put the marinade on the turkey, got different parts of the stuffing put together, washed the potatoes, and did anything else I could to make Whitney’s job easier.  Then I wrote out very detailed instructions for her.  When she came home for lunch, we went over the timeline of things a few times and I left her with our unpredictable oven and went to work.

At work, I decided that the entire week would be devoted to Thanksgiving.  I taught the words “turkey,” “pilgrim,” and “Indian” to my 5 year olds, and watched a Thanksgiving episode of “Friends” with my adults.  That afternoon, I kept checking my phone and Facebook for any messages from Whitney.  I wasn’t able to really keep up with them, but from what I gathered (and what was told to me later), this was what was happening…

The oven and the stovetop cannot be on at the same time, or else the power goes out.  We didn’t know that.  So Whitney was left alone, in the dark, with things in the oven, not knowing where the breaker was.  Also, the oven was getting pretty hot and when she eventually did get the power working again, the heat from the oven set off the smoke alarm that my mom had sent me in the mail last year.  Whoops. Thanks, mom.

The chefs!

Some pre-dinner coloring.

But eventually, after calling in reinforcements and sending the potatoes off to Diana’s house to be boiled, things were looking good. When I got home, I was pleasantly surprised by how little work was left to do before we could sit down to eat.  Soon, everything was all ready and we just had to wait for the latecomers to straggle in.  Around 11.00pm, we sat down to eat.  We had decorated the table with turkey coloring placemats (Whitney’s $1 purchase from the States), had plenty of wine, and were ready to say what we were thankful for.  I had to start, not sure why, and probably said the lamest thing ever…”I’m thankful for Spain and America.”  Booooring.  Whitney, Juan, Diana, Josemi, and Oscar all said much more poignant things.  Sorry, guys, I’ll do better next time.

The dinner turned out to be delicious. Everything was perfect. Then, when the pumpkin pie came out, scared as I had been, it was even better than last year’s. Yummm.

So. Much. Food.

Maybe I should make another soon...

We spent the rest of the night playing “Pin the nose on the pumpkin” (or as the Spanish read it, “Pin the no sé on the pumpkin”), taking pictures with our finger mustaches, playing card games, and just enjoying each other’s company.

Fun and games.

Like last year, I was sad to be away from my family for the holiday, but being with my Spanish family is the next best thing. I’m so lucky to have all of them in my life!

Josemi and I didn't get the mustache memo.