Thanksgiving and other festivals...

One of the things I like about America is the amount of public holidays they have. Admittedly, every day is a public holiday for me, but it's nice for Omar to have some time off :-)

So 25th November was Thanksgiving Day, and we weren't really sure what to make of it all - it felt a bit like Christmas, just without the presents, decorations and festive jumpers. We had the turkey....

...which in true festive fashion didn't defrost properly and was a bugger to cook. I under-estimated how long it would take to defrost the 13 lbs monster, so we had a traditional early evening dinner. Which of course came with all the trimmings....

... I am pleased to report that Brussels sprouts seem to be part of Thanksgiving Dinner traditional, along with some more unusual trimmings - like sweet potato (understandable), macaroni cheese (?), and a green bean and Campbell's mushroom soup casserole, with onion ring topping (??). Apparently Campbell's Soup contributed to Thanksgiving what Coca Cola contributed to Christmas, as I'm pretty sure the Pilgrims didn't have crispy fried onions and mushroom soup.

And speaking of the Pilgrims, I tried to find out a bit more about the 'meaning' of Thanksgiving and what precisely I was supposed to be giving thanks for. Admittedly, most of my information ended up coming from Wikipedia and the History Channel (I was busy cooking, ok!), but the gist of it seems to be that Americans started celebrating the fact that they managed to survive some harsh winters and bad conditions when first colonising the eastern states.

It would appear, however, that the main reason the first colonialists survived was due to the benevolence of the local Native American tribespeople, who provided corn seed for the Pilgrims to plant when their wheat crops failed, and showed them how to live off the land. So perhaps they are giving thanks to Native Americans? And considering how this particular relationship developed, I felt a bit uncomfortable celebrating what is ultimately the exploitation and overthrow of a native culture. By the British.

But I guess that, like Christmas, this holiday is more about eating and shopping these days than anything else. So maybe it's not as tasteless as I think, well not in that way at least :-)

But have no fear, normal service was resumed the next day....

.... courtesy of Buffalo Wild Wings...

   

...and some Mexican buddies.





Bleurgh.





And while we're talking of festivals, I was fortunate enough to experience my first ever Feuerzangenbowle this year (see the wikipedia page for more background), courtesy of Athens' German contingent. For the uninitiated, it's turbo mulled wine, WITH ADDED FIRE!! Oh yes.

The fire comes courtesy of a rum-soaked sugar cone, which is suspended above the mulled wine/gluhwein and set alight. It looks something like this:

(It's on fire, honest - our host Christian has the singed arms to prove it)

And to facilitate ongoing genial Anglo-Deutsch relations, I led the way in consumption of this uber-gluhwein. Alas, my kind gesture back-fired on me the next day.

But it was worth the sacrifice :-)









So November has been pretty festival-tastic - roll on December!