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!"