I am slowly chugging along here - people are literally taking bets on when I will catch up to all my blogs. Amy, bless her heart, thinks I will be all caught up by the time I come home (whenever that is, eek!) I like that someone has faith in me!
We have finally made it November (!) and with November comes a very important holiday for Americans - THANKSGIVING! This was going to be my first Thanksgiving away from home - I have never, ever, missed a Thanksgiving. I am not going to lie, it was kind of tough to realize that at first. I knew that in a few short weeks I would be home for Christmas, but it just didn't feel right to not be at home with my family. It didn't help that in all my classes I was teaching about Thanksgiving too!
I loved teaching Thanksgiving to my students. They were so excited to learn about "Turkey Day" as they know it. I showed endless amounts of pictures of food, taught them a short history of why we celebrate Thanksgiving (at this point, some of my students insisted I was British and not American - so when I finally talked about Thanksgiving they finally believed that I am American. Silly kids,) and did I mention, show them tons of photos of food?? Their mouths hit the floor when I showed them what a table looks like at thanksgiving. This of course made a few of my "jokers" make comments on the American's being fat stereotype but then I asked them what their tables look like on Christmas and that shut them up quickly. (The French eat a TON on Christmas - turkey, wine, duck, wine, seafood, wine, bread, wine, cakes, yule logs, more wine, you name it) Seeing the looks of disgust and horror was absolutely hilarious when describing "stuffing" to them - "Quoi?! You put inside a turkey?! C'est degoutant! (disgusting)" The French eat stuffing too! Silly, silly, kids. They cheered when I showed mashed potatoes and there was mixed reaction to green bean casserole. I think the biggest shock to them was Candied Yams/Sweet Potatoes. Everyone insisted it was a dessert, and I explained to them no, you eat it at the same time as the turkey and mashed potatoes. They insisted I must be mistaken. Listen kids, who is the American here?! "But miss! Marshmallows, brown sugar, that is dessert!" I think everyone thought this was the most disgusting thing of all, but I assured them it is not. After class several kids even asked me for the recipe! After my lovely PowerPoint presentation that I made, we played my favorite game and the kids favorite game BINGO. The students were getting so into it, they asked me if they could call the words. Now, I literally had taught them these words the week before/that day - so listening to French 11-15 year olds pronounce Thanksgiving words is one of the most priceless things ever. They pronounce "pie" as "pee" (hard not to laugh when someone ask if you want a big ol' plate of pumpkin PEE." They say Whip-head cream instead of whipped. Crown-berries (ok, I will give them that, considering cranberries do NOT exist in France) Mash-head potatoes, etc. It was quite amusing for me.
As I mentioned before, it was difficult for me not to be home, especially since I had to work the ENTIRE day of Thanksgiving. The. Entire. Day. And my teachers kept going "Oh yeah! It is Thanksgiving today isn't it? You sad no turkey? You sad you don't get to celebrate" Things like that. Why yes I am sad I do not get to be home for this and that you are bringing it up every 5 seconds :( But, even though I wasn't in France, Tina, Mindy, and I were making sure we were bring Thanksgiving to France!
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we had a big Thanksgiving party in France. It was 3 Americans, a New Zealander, a Brit, 4 Frenchies, and a Mexican at the party - and all of the "foreigners" had NEVER experienced Thanksgiving before. We were so excited to share Thanksgiving with them, however, Tina, Mindy, and I have never made our own Thanksgiving dinner before either - so it was going to be quite the experience. It is very difficult to get a whole Turkey in France - you have to go 
to a butcher, in advance, and they will get one for you (with the head still attached, eek) No one believed me when I told them this. Low and behold Saturday morning we get a call saying Tina couldn't get a whole turkey. But, there was no way we could fit a turkey in her oven, so it was all for the best. She thought I was going to be mad - Tina if you read this, I wasn't haha, because we still got turkey filets! We also got a whole chicken just for the effect of having a bird. Tina was in charge of the meat, apple pie, and veggies. Mindy was in charge of pumpkin pie and stuffing. Rosie was on mashed potato duty (she is from New Zealand.) My job was to make the "degoutant" candied sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. Now, as I was making this and drinking a mimosa (the French don't do mimosa's either, but Mindy is making sure everyone gets introduced to that!) the Frenchies came in. They stopped short and 
stopped talking as they see me putting butter and brown sugar on the sweet potatoes. As I reached for the marshmallows they are like 'What are you doing!?! What is that?!" Same reaction as my students. I laughed and explained what it is - again they asked if it is a dessert. I assured them that it is not, and they look disgusted. I told them just wait, I promised them it will be delicious! They didn't believe me. I started to make the green bean casserole, and again they looked freaked out, but one said it looked a lot better than the sweet potatoes. Oh ye French of little faith! They had the same look when they saw Mindy making the stuffing. We promised them they will love everything, but they just shook their heads. The French are snobby when it comes to food (I mean, they do have some of the best cuisine in the world) We would show them.
to a butcher, in advance, and they will get one for you (with the head still attached, eek) No one believed me when I told them this. Low and behold Saturday morning we get a call saying Tina couldn't get a whole turkey. But, there was no way we could fit a turkey in her oven, so it was all for the best. She thought I was going to be mad - Tina if you read this, I wasn't haha, because we still got turkey filets! We also got a whole chicken just for the effect of having a bird. Tina was in charge of the meat, apple pie, and veggies. Mindy was in charge of pumpkin pie and stuffing. Rosie was on mashed potato duty (she is from New Zealand.) My job was to make the "degoutant" candied sweet potatoes and green bean casserole. Now, as I was making this and drinking a mimosa (the French don't do mimosa's either, but Mindy is making sure everyone gets introduced to that!) the Frenchies came in. They stopped short and 
stopped talking as they see me putting butter and brown sugar on the sweet potatoes. As I reached for the marshmallows they are like 'What are you doing!?! What is that?!" Same reaction as my students. I laughed and explained what it is - again they asked if it is a dessert. I assured them that it is not, and they look disgusted. I told them just wait, I promised them it will be delicious! They didn't believe me. I started to make the green bean casserole, and again they looked freaked out, but one said it looked a lot better than the sweet potatoes. Oh ye French of little faith! They had the same look when they saw Mindy making the stuffing. We promised them they will love everything, but they just shook their heads. The French are snobby when it comes to food (I mean, they do have some of the best cuisine in the world) We would show them.
I apologize at this point for the photos - I forgot my camera that day :( 
and I took them very quickly on my cellphone, so not the best of images. Mindy and I got to Tina's around 11 and started prepping stuff right away, everyone arrived around 2, and we ate around 3. While we were waiting for everything to cook, we were at the table joking around, and Mindy brilliantly came up with "Happy Francegiving" so we called it that the rest of the night. By a miracle, everything turned out superbly! Despite the fact we had 80 things trying to fit in a tiny oven, everything was cooked!
and I took them very quickly on my cellphone, so not the best of images. Mindy and I got to Tina's around 11 and started prepping stuff right away, everyone arrived around 2, and we ate around 3. While we were waiting for everything to cook, we were at the table joking around, and Mindy brilliantly came up with "Happy Francegiving" so we called it that the rest of the night. By a miracle, everything turned out superbly! Despite the fact we had 80 things trying to fit in a tiny oven, everything was cooked! 
Despite the fact we had no idea how to cook the filet of turkey, Tina did a spectacular job! Despite the fact we 3 Americans had never cooked our own Thanksgiving dinner, we did it! I left one of the pans of sweet potatoes in a little bit too long so some of the marshmallows disappeared...and it might have added a little bit too much brown sugar, but let me tell you - it was a success!! Our French friends came up to me afterwards and said they loved the sweet potatoes - WAHOO! I was so, so, happy and you better believe I gloated to allllll of my students the next week, telling them that my French friends looooved Thanksgiving and candied sweet potatoes/yams. Everything was 
a success. Apparently you can pull off Thanksgiving in France!After our wonderful dinner, we decided to watch a traditional Thanksgiving movie - Shaun of the Dead...ok, not so traditional...a very funny zombie movie. We talked for a long time and we played cards. It was such a wonderful evening with new friends. Despite the fact I couldn't be home with my family on Thanksgiving, I was glad to spend it with my new "family" here in Lyon. I could not have asked for a better time. Happy Francegiving! (a few months late ha.)
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