Thanksgiving in a Foreign Land

As this is my first time not having Thanksgiving at home, this is an especially momentous landmark for me.  My family doesn't even do big Thanksgiving, since half of my family's in England, and the other half is all over the States, so it's hard to get everyone together.  For the past few years, it's only been my parents, me, and maybe my great-great-aunt.  So not having a ton of family around isn't even a big deal to me.  It's missing out on the traditions and helping my mom to do every little thing.  I miss being able to go out with my friends to shady bars in Pittsburgh on the night before Thanksgiving.  It's the little things really...  I've also realized that unless I live really close to my family, it'll be hard to get to see them for Thanksgiving every year now.  I now I feel like I've been shoved out into the cruel world to prepare Thanksgiving dinners on my own.  Ok, that might be stretching it a bit, but this is an emotional time right now.

To remedy being in a country that does not celebrate Thanksgiving, us Americans are putting on a huge Thanksgiving dinner.  I think we're expecting around 25 people.  We've got two turkeys, thirteen pounds (roughly 6-7 kg) of potatoes to be roasted and mashed, so many pies, and all the other fixings.  I've been lucky enough to get canned pumpkin from my mom in the States, so I don't have to boil and mash my own pumpkins (how do you even do that??) So staying true to American tradition, I'm taking shortcuts in my cooking, and it'll be delicious.  I also have my mom's recipe for stuffing, which is the best soooo I'm excited about that.  I've noticed that they don't really have cornbread here (understandable, but sad).  This means that I actually had to look up a recipe and make cornbread with real ingredients, not just a box of Jiff cornbread. This is NOT American.  It took effort and I had to use so many ingredients.  I don't even think I've ever made non-Jiff cornbread before.  This is a Thanksgiving of firsts for me here.

But in the end, I hope today's feast with friends rather than family will be just as much fun, but I will nonetheless be filled with homesickness.  I'm sure my mom is crying right now too.  Don't worry, Mom, I'll come over next year.

Happy Thanksgiving guys.  Hope you slip into happy food coma dreams.

Oh yeah- one more week until the Hobbit premiere here in Wellington. We're all excited.