A Semester in London: Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!!!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We celebrated Thanksgiving here in London on Sunday. We have to be out of our flats this Friday so we decided to do it early so we could enjoy a full day celebration. We held the festivities at my flat in Stockwell. There were 16 of us. We invited Jonathan and Alise Kennedy and Tony and Anne James to celebrate with us. It was their first time at a Thanksgiving celebration. As you my know the British do not celebrate this particular holiday. Although as Rick James said earlier today. " It is because the British threw the Puritans out of England that we have Thanksgiving in America!" We started with a variety of appetizers: a variety of cheese and crackers, two types of pate, grapes, olives, chips and dip, Alise made smoke salmon with cream cheese on brown bread with pepper. For dinner I cooked turkey and a cranberry/orange stuffing, sweet potatoes seasoned with french brandy, brown sugar, butter, honey, salt and pepper (I am still eating the leftovers), broccoli with lemon and olive oil, gravy, and corn. Krista made mashed potatoes with cream cheese and sour cream which were fantastic. Sam made green bean casserole, Lindsay did a hot dish, Ben made swedish meatballs that were wonderful and a hot mead/mulled wine. Tony and Anne brought some wine from Chile. Krista also made apple and pumpkin pie the night before which we served with vanilla ice cream that Rachel brought. Sam also made two types of jello (Curtis take note: this jello wiggled and was not put in the freezer like last year's)

Taryn and Lindsay did some wonderful decorations: Signs we put on the walls, and individual placecards with our name and Native American name and translation on them. They were pretty amusing. They also made individual turkeys where we were able to write down what we things for which we were greatful.

By coincidence the movie, Pocahatas, was playing on the TV during our festivities. We enjoyed watching it.

wall decorations by Taryn

Our individual placecards.

Tony and Gary's turkeys....

The dining room

The "kids" table in the living room

Dave enjoying the appetizers.

Krista, Bob, and Taryn waiting for dinner to be served

Rachel, Ben, and Lindsay doing some Thanksgiving bonding!

Alise, Jonathan and some of the students at the "adult" table

Tony and Anne James, Alise and Jonathan Kennedy and students enjoying each others company and conversation.

Tony and Anne at their first Thanksgiving Dinner

The "kids" table

By the way the "hats" came from "crackers" that were brought by Matt. Crackers are something that is a british tradition. You pull the two ends and it makes a bang sound. Inside you get a paper hat, a toy or gift, and a bad joke that you have to read. So that we why we are wearing these crowns.

Can't believe we let Andy have a knife. Plus he is wearing his McLovin vest!