Turkey Day

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

I wish I were home to help many of you celebrate our national and very American Holiday! This is one Holiday I thought, for sure, I would not see celebrated here. Well, THIS and Fourth of July, of course. You just can't get more American than that!

However, I have been very surprised. There is actually a significant presence of [American] Thanksgiving here, especially at the International Schools and the hotels. Practically since Halloween, there has been a "buzz" about Thanksgiving and where people are going to go to celebrate it. Huh? Really???

When I say "buzz"...it just means that people around town are talking about it...not that a majority of the population even give it a second thought. Many of the International Schools, even those that are not American based, are celebrating it. Almost every 4 and 5 star hotel is offering a Thanksgiving feast. A Chinese acquaintance wished my family a Happy Thanksgiving. The translations books don't have the word cucumber, but they were sure to include Thanksgiving [feast]. The food stores and markets are amping up their turkey availability.

Being so far from home, it was important to me to actually celebrate it. Our oven doesn't get hotter than 250 degrees. Uh, yeah. So, pretty much anything I could think of to cook or even re-heat...wasn't going to get very done in our stove. So, we decided to go out to eat at the Hong Qiao Marriott on the Puxi side. This Marriott hotel is located right next to Bubba's. Hong Qiao has a large American influence and according to all the research I did, this Marriott provides the best Thanksgiving spread in town...on both sides of the river. I figured after all the pain and suffering I have experienced over here, we deserved a nice AMERICAN meal out. Pretty much all the fancy hotels who offer Thanksgiving dinner jack up the prices because they are catering to expats. Our dinner out ended up costing a pretty penny. Good thing I saved so much money on my haircut!! ;)

We ended up treating our ayi to dinner. It is our way of saying thank you for her loyal and ever diligent services that she provides our family every day. Also, she never gets an opportunity to see me cook or experience a lot of western food. So, I was looking forward to introducing her to some of our american favorites!

Ryan's teacher admitted she tries to make a Thanksgiving dinner at home for her kids...every year. But, she is never sure what to do with the left over turkey. She mentioned she doesn't really like plain turkey after a couple of days. I suggested she make turkey soup and also described our delicious turkey sandwiches - Yum! She wasn't really aware that we ate cranberry sauce with our turkey...or gravy. I suggested a little cream cheese, turkey and cranberry sauce on a sandwich. She looked at me like I had grown horns! haha Uh, what!?

Our family has MANY wonderful things to be thankful for and we had some opportunity to talk about them around our table. I expressed to both our driver (new one, love him!) and our ayi in the car, on our way to the hotel, we were thankful to them as well. After we had translated Thanksgiving Day into Chinese, they seemed to understand what we were trying to say.

So, again, I have been surprised about the amount of recognition our American Holiday has received over here. I'm THANKFUL for it, as it makes me feel a little closer to home.

We miss everyone. THANK YOU for all that you are to us. I, personally, don't know what I would do without you all supporting me.

Now, it's time to get our Christmas stuff out! Christmas!! Yah! :)