A Greek Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a great holiday, especially if you have the opportunity to spend it with family.  If that is not the case, however, we just have to find ways to make do.  That’s what I ended up doing.  Not just once, but three times this year.

First “Thanksgiving”:  On Tuesday evening, the school hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the English department.  There were about fifty-five or sixty of us coming together for a “traditional” Thanksgiving meal.   Salads, cranberries, rolls, stuffing (well, not in the traditional sense… minced meat would be a better description.  Minced meat of a questionable source would be a good description), turkey, and pumpkin pie.  Except, this isn’t your normal pumpkin pie.  It was straight out of the pumpkin.  Interesting, to say the least.  Regardless, it was fun to be there, and the food tasted good!

Thanksgiving Day Presentation:  Every year, the English department is asked to put together a 40-minute presentation to celebrate Thanksgiving.  This year, we decided to tackle a pretty challenging program, including live music, filmed interviews, a brief history, a visual presentation, and a bake sale).  It’s amazing how much work goes into a presentation like this, but in the end we had a pretty good final product.  

A sample from the presentation.
Yes, those are pics from SJU.

Thanksgiving Day Dinner:  It’s okay, though.  We had a second Thanksgiving dinner that night!  Seven fellows got together to have salad, potatoes, broccoli, turkey, gravy, and pecan and apple pies!  Not only was it fun, but it was pretty tasty!  The only thing missing was the pumpkin pie we have at home…

Yup, Thanksgiving wasn't too terrible.

Post-Thanksgiving Day Dinner:  I was lucky.  My department head (a Boston native who’s been teaching here for about 19-years) invited me over to her house for her family’s/friends’ celebration.  I rolled in around 8:15 with a pumpkin pie (yes, the one I was missing the night before!!) and left around five hours later, fully satisfied.  Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, quinoa salad, mushroom and chestnut pie (SO GOOD!), cranberries, corn bread, pumpkin pie, blueberry pie, and copious amounts of wine were on the menu!  I met some fun Greeks, practiced a bit of my Greek language skill (or non-skill), and completely forgot that it was the day after Thanksgiving!  I have to say, this was probably one of my top five Thanksgiving celebrations!  Looking forward to bringing some of those recipes back home!

Get ready for some mushroom and chestnut pie!