Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Sure roast turkey and potato filling both rank in my top ten foods, but I also love it because it always meant large amounts of family. Growing up we often had Christmas brunch with the Snyders and Christmas dinner with the Shotts, or vise versa, but Thanksgiving dinner always meant both sides of the family. My favorite Thanksgivings were always the ones held at our house - the smell of turkey filling the house while we listened to Alice's Restaurant, running up from the Macy's Day parade to tear bread for potato filling our stuffing, setting the table with the best china, and getting to help my parents cook.

This was the first Thanksgiving I've been away for, and to be honest, I've been dreading this day all semester. Maybe it's the days you dread the most that never hurt as much as you expect them to. I missed my family terribly and would have given anything for Alice's restaurant and the whole family at home - but today was actually a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll always remember my American Thanksgiving in Canada.

I was planning to sleep in today, but when I was woken up with "Happy Thanksgivings!" from Teal and Kyra knocking on our door, I went to breakfast with Hannah, Rachel, Teal, and Kyra. Americans are a sizable minority here, and every time one American saw another "Happy Thanksgiving!" was yelled out. I'm sure some Canadians shook their heads at us, but it made me happy. I watched some of the Macy's Day parade before heading to class. I've never been to class on Thanksgiving before, obviously, but I found it highly amusing that when I was I had to sit through Pre-Confederation Canada and Politics in Maritime Canada. Teal and I went to down after my last class to pick up the rest of the supplies for our dinner.

In good American tradition, we started off our celebration watching football. We ate French cheese on triscuts and a baguette, but we drank California wine out of plastic cups. We ordered Festive Specials from Swiss Chalet - chicken, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, and a role. It wasn't turkey, but it was quite tasty. Teal and I ate more cranberry sauce straight of the can, and we had a cake for Emily's 20th birthday which was yesterday. We popped Christmas crackers and wore the hats while playing scrabble and watching Family Guy. I'm sure it wasn't what the Pilgrims had in mind, but as four Americans in Canada we enjoyed our celebration.

A toast!

Part of my festive special:

In Thanksgiving tradition, we ate too much (you can also see me eating cranberry sauce straight out of the can in the bottom left corner):

Kyra and Teal in their cracker hats:

Emily's cake, E = XX:

And, of course, our scrabble board: