Thanksgiving

Since we've been in Greece, a lot of my readers that celebrate Thanksgiving often ask how we spend our holiday abroad. Given that Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday, it lands on a busy weekday. The kids still have to attend school and Kosta has to work. My expat friends are just as busy as we are and it's difficult for us to get together. Although, we are in constant communication throughout the day, comparing our progress in the kitchen and laughing about and unforeseen setbacks. This year, we had exceptional communication given that we're all connected through our favorite social networking websites. A few weeks ago we started sharing our adventures in shopping for turkeys, giving price updates and other finds.

The only challenge that I faced was getting everything prepared in between taking kids to and from school as well as running some errands. It would have been much easier if I wouldn't have had to leave the house. But, we didn't eat until after 6pm, so I had plenty of time.

Here are some photos from our day...

A photo before dinner..and yes, even Gigi gets a little turkey. Although it's a nice photo we could've moved the napkin holder!

We have THE BEST neighbors.  Early in the morning our neighbor, Mr. George, dropped off his homemade wine to enjoy with our dinner. I'm so grateful that we have caring and generous neighbors. I never know how to thank them enough for all of the wonderful things that they do for us. This wine was perfect!

When Izabella came home from school she helped bake an apple pie. I was actually making the dough for a lemon meringue pie when she requested an apple pie, so we made this spontaneously.

I always let my children get dirty in the kitchen. I believe that letting them try everything is essential to their learning .

 Izabella's apple pie straight from the oven. It may not look perfect but it definitely tasted perfect!

The turkey. You may notice that there are a lot of drumsticks here. Well, that's because I procrastinated long enough before Thanksgiving to land myself without a fresh whole turkey. Sure, there were frozen ones available, but I couldn't have had one thawed out in time. So, I improvised and bought fresh drumsticks and baked them on a bed of stuffing. My question is this: If I could find fresh drumsticks, what happened to the rest of the fresh turkeys attached to the drumsticks?  Nevertheless, it was delicious and more than enough for us as we have leftovers for today.

I did run  into one setback. My hand mixer doesn't work! I plugged it in to whip the meringue for the lemon pie and NADA. It didn't work. So, I  had to whip the meringue by hand and I couldn't make it light and fluffy like it should be so my pie looked a little flat. It tasted fantastic though!

I had to mash the potatoes by hand as well. They were a little lumpy, but again, delicious.

Here's a list of what I made for our Thanksgiving dinner:

Turkey drumsticks

Stuffing

Mashed potatoes

Corn

  Gravy

Apple pie

Lemon meringue pie

I kept our choices minimal since it was just the five of us. Again, it was more than enough. Everyone loved the dinner and I'm thankful for that!

I hope that everyone observing Thanksgiving had an enjoyable day.

Related Links:

Thessaloniki, turkey & tree

The Turkey Hunt