Thanksgiving

Dia de Gracias here was a nice second to being home. The whole week last week and even today, I have to give a presentation on Thanksgiving, which really made my mouth water the whole time! I talked about the history of Thanksgiving, and about the Pilgrims and the Indians (which is hard to explain what a Native American is...some of them don't even understand slavery but that is another subject). I talked a lot about the food and how my Mom makes many desserts on this day. This year she made a Pumpkin Pie, Cheesecake, brownies and TWO Apple Pies (one of which my dog Bandit enjoyed). I went in to detail about how the sweet potatoes are made (with cinnamon and marshmallows), mentioned cranberry sauce, and in one class had to talk about how to stuff a turkey (without getting too graphic). I also talked about the football games (Oh how I miss football!) and the Thanksgiving Day Parade, I even showed a video of it. And the last thing I talked about was of course, Black Friday. Many of them were stunned that stores would open at 5am, and how people CAMP OUT to be the first in line. They thought I was crazy. Stores here open no earlier than 10am, close from 2-5, and open again 5 to 8:30, except Saturday, when stores only open from 10-2, or Sunday when literally the whole town shuts down and NOTHING in open (Okay, maybe the gas station is open on Sunday, but for limited hours...
Mike had to special order a turkey, since they do not have those on hand here. And, after surveying my class, not many people here have even HAD turkey before (aside from sandwich slices).  He also made a homemade pumpkin pie, which turned out to be DELICIOUS. We had some mashed potatoes with a plethora of butter and garlic (yum). And an assortment of Spanish dishes brought by the Spanish attendees. It was a huge success, we even got to watch some of the Macy's parade since it was on 3pm our time. I haven't seen the parade in years given it comes on early in the morning usually, so it was nice to see it in the afternoon!
I was able to Skype with my family, and since my Grammy was in town, I even got to speak to her! It made me a lot less homesick.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!