Thankful for Thanksgiving

Have you ever experienced Thanksgiving in a different country? Or invited someone from a different country to your home for Thanksgiving? C and I celebrated Thanksgiving in a few different ways. For the past month, C has had visiting students from Africa in his classroom. Seeing as they were far from home, he made them all (that's SEVENTEEN teenage boys) chocolate chip cookies. They were very grateful and a few of them had eaten their small bag of cookies before leaving the classroom. (Note: I'm thankful he let me have one hot from the oven!)

I've been teaching at a language center and chose to make pumpkin bread for the ladies I teach as well as though who work at the center. They had never had it before and wanted to know if I had cut up and boiled my own pumpkin in order to make the bread. What a glorious moment to impart on my new friends the wonderful world of canned foods. The executive at Libby's (for Libby's Pumpkin) should be given a raise! Of course these ladies wanted to know if maybe my grandma didn't show me how to use real pumpkin. I let them know that I had one grandma who grew up in the city and one who grew up on a farm and I had never seen either one of them use anything other than Libby's pumpkin mix.

Of course, not everything is as easy over here when it comes to baking for special occasions. Pecan pie is an expensive treat seeing as 1 kilo or 2.2 pounds of pecans will cost nearly $30 USD. Thankfully I bought a few bags before leaving the States. I won't even go into how thankful I am for Jiffy and Shawnee Mills Cornbread! Boxed breads are hard to find and the price is quite high when you do find them. I used my last Jiffy cornbread mix last night to go with our chili. It's the little things in life that bring the comforts of home anywhere in the world. We will have to stock up on those goodies next summer while in the States.

Our Thanksgiving evening was spent with friends from America, England, Canada, India, and South Africa. Quite a mix! After two long days of cooking (pumpkin bread, pecan pie, cornbread dressing, German chocolate cake), I nearly fell asleep on our friends couch after feasting on our evening meal. C&I cut the evening short and headed home to call family and friends. With a 9 or 10 hour time difference, calling can be tricky at times. We are thankful for those of you we could speak with and for those we could not--HAPPY LATE THANKSGIVING!