Thanksgiving Ramblings

It is taking quite an effort to remember that it is Thanksgiving tomorrow. Bronson asked me what the date was today...I dunno *shrug*. Life is in a time warp here. And since there is no societal or cultural influence regarding Thanksgiving here, we're free-stylin' it as far as when we do it. But we're getting as traditional as possible in every other way.

The kids have school tomorrow, so Thursday is out. We decided on Saturday. We've invited our friend, Sara and her entourage. She's married to an American and they lived in Chicago for several years. We've also invited Ann, our upstairs neighbor, also known as Ana Pilar. She is originally from the midwest also and is married to a Spaniard and has lived here 40 years. I don't think we'll even notice the difference in the amount of food we are cooking from our regular daily cooking. 11 people, 17 people, whatever.

Did I ever describe our kitchen to you? Well, we have a galley kitchen with about a total of 7 feet of counter space, an oven 2/3 the size we are used to in the US and a fridge that is about half the size. Normally we function just fine with things the way they are, but now it's Thanksgiving and I'm wondering where we're going to put it all.

We had to pre-order a turkey from the butcher downstairs. I'm not exactly sure what we're going to get. We asked for around an 8 kilo turkey, which is approximately 16 pounds. The butcher must think we're nuts because he said he didn't know if he could get one that big. I asked Matthew to point out that we are American and we like everything BIG!!! Big cars, big houses, big malls, big meat! I'm sure we'd just get a look like "shove off, you'll get a 7 pound turkey and like it!" I'm also wondering if it's head, innards and feet (and possibly feathers) will still be attached. Luckily the butcher will probably do anything we want him to do before we take it home. I can just picture him holding up a dead turkey by the neck and saying, "Here's your 4 kilo turkey!" and us wondering if the thing has even been killed yet. "Uh, excuse me, could you pluck it, cut off it's head and feet and take out all the guts please? I'd rather not myself."

Other items on the menu are mashed taters, gravy, stuffing, whatever veggies our friends are bringing, and I'm doing my darndest to find pumpkin to make pie. If not, we'll have to settle for butternut squash pie since that is the closest thing I've found so far. Cranberries may be a no show also. There are things you just can't find here. Can you reconstitute dried cranberries? They may have been sighted.

On another note, I could use a prayer or ten for my attitude. It's pretty poopy lately. I can intellectualize how bad my attitude is right now, but can't talk myself out of the bad mood. I am thankful for all the amazing things in my life and yet I get cranky over stupid little things. All the time, but especially during the holidays, no one likes to be crabby and neither do I. I'm sure everyone in our household would appreciate the prayers for me to get over myself. Muchas gracias!