Thanksgiving in France

This is the first year that I haven’t been with my family for Thanksgiving. It’s weird and a bit melancholy to be so far away on this holiday, which is my mom’s favorite. I’m lucky, though, for having my fellow teaching assistants here. We planned an international Thanksgiving celebration on Wednesday night and ended up having a wonderful evening. Here are the numbers:

5: nationalities represented (3 Americans, 3 Germans, 2 Brits, 1 Mexican, and 1 Italian)

2: Mexican games played (basically Mexican bingo and Mexican dreidel, and they were awesome)

5: bottles of wine, cider, and juice consumed

0: traditional Thanksgiving foods eaten (instead, we had lasagna, croissants, chips, fries, salad, broccoli, carrots, spaghetti with pesto, cookies, and chocolate mousse)

10: sincere and heartwarming recitations of thanks. This was the best part of the evening: going around and saying what we’re thankful for. While every family has a different tradition for this part of the holiday, it seemed important to include it with our international group. We also all gave thanks in French, which was certainly a new experience for everyone!

~ Paper turkey from home, which we used as a table decoration ~

~ Assistants at our Thanksgiving table ~