I love turtle!

Thanksgiving!

Let's face it, celebrating Thanksgiving in a foreign land is kind of bizarre. However, if facebook is any indication, such is the power of Thanksgiving that non-Americans who have spent time in our fair land keep the flame of it a-blazin' in their hearts.

Some of the Pros and Cons of making Thanksgiving in Germany:

Cons:

1. It is not a holiday. You won't have the day off, the Friday off, and don't even think about skipping out early on Wednesday.

2. The butcher might call you on Tuesday night to say that you can have the turkey you ordered for Wednesday on Friday (ooops, sorry), which will cause you to run all around town trying to buy up enough turkey parts to feed 19 Thanksgiving-curious Germans.

3. Of course, the biggest con of all is that your family is not there. Yuck.

Neither Pro nor Con

Because it is a workday, you have to have the dinner in the evening. It's odd to stuff yourself and then go to bed-- rather than stuff yourself, take a nap, watch West Side Story, and then see if there is any pie left.

Pros

1. The lack of a whole Turkey (see Cons #2) can prompt impromptu Turkey Leg Confit-making.

2. In Germany it is very easy to get pure goose fat (see Pros #1)

3. Everyone is really excited to celebrate a Real American Thanksgiving, meaning that you could have 19 people stuffed into a usually decent-sized living room.

Potluck is definitely the way to go. Everyone brought an übertraditional dish-- our table was groaning under the weight of stuffing, pumpkin pies, cranberry sauce, baked pineapple, green bean casserole, etc, etc, etc-- with a Turkish pumpkin dish and tiramisu thrown in for local color.

We mostly played Pass the Baby, though (unfortunately without flash):

And some pre-Thanksgiving snaps:

"Yay, the hat fits, Mama!"

the Eisbär a commeth

Whee! I finished my reading for the evening 8 minutes early, so I have time to write the blog!

Liam is now.... gasp... 5 months old. (I shouldn't gasp now because...double gasp... he is just going to keep getting older and older...) He's a champion roller now, and as such he rolls from his little co-sleeper crib into our bed very night. Unfortunately, our bed is not big enough for real co-sleeping, so we have made the leap to buy him his very own crib. Yikes! I'll miss having the little guy right next to me.

Also-- if you see us on the street, don't be scared. He's not a real bear--

(The Germans go NUTS for Liam in his bear suits. It's like having a celebrity strapped to my chest.)

Brown Bear.

Polar Bear.

Our Lovable Baby Nerd

Drinky Boy!

Liam likes to drink from a sippy cup! YIPPEE!

(the bottle really never worked and the medicine dropper thing only worked a couple of times. A novelty act, apparently)

Le Liam, the sequel--- When the Croissant Beckons

Hello Cool Cats and Kittens, Liam here. It's a lot easier to write on the blog, now that I can sit at the computer.

My puppy and bear agreed to be my editors on this piece. Thanks for keeping me on target, guys!

Here's what I like to do on Sundays:

Goooood morning, Mama!

Then, I put on my monster pants and inspect Papa's dental hygiene. Time to floooossss!

Then I try to eat a croissant, but Mama is SO MEAN (like I said before), she won't let me have it and instead makes me dance around.

(Grandpa Cha cha, I tried to make a nice Beach Boys video for you, but it didn't turn out so well.)

I spend most of the day looking real cool.

Then I roll around and wiggle around and I get REALLY MAD that I can't crawl yet.