Thanksgiving in France

The traditional Thanksgiving spread Provencal style

Our first big real test if we could handle the new lifestyle: Thanksgiving. Not only the blockbuster of all American holidays, but also a traditional big party event for us. Every year since we moved to the islands we'd always host a massive dinner, educating the locals about our late November over-indulgence custom (and feeding them plenty of turkey and beer in the process) and taking in random Americans. Like in France, Thanksgiving is kind of a non-event in TCI - it's not a holiday so everyone has to work and the kids go to school. But Thanksgiving at our house is usually a late night affair, holiday or not.

Here in France, we expected things to be a tad tamer, but we weren't going to back down totally from tradition. We decided to take the kids out early from school on Thanksgiving (but not before they got to enjoy turkey for lunch at the school cafeteria, a nice gesture by Madame Pecnard and the crew). They got home in time to watch the Macy's Day parade, which we streamed over the Internet and set up for all to watch on the computer monitor in the living room.

Toni's pumpkin pies - a big hit with the pumpkin deprived French

We had invited a small group of people - not our usual island SRO crowd - but enough to make it significant - and to worry Toni to death about how to feed everyone out of our tiny kitchen. Our American friends Dave, Audrey and Marin were key to the invitee list, bringing their knowledge and appreciation of the holiday. Our new French friend Agnes and her friend Philippe, joined us, and seemed vaguely familiar with the concept. And our very cheerful and friendly Dutch neighbors, Lannie and Hans (and dog Casper) made the trek up the drive to see what it what was all about. And of course, Candie was here, fully recovered from her chaperoning of Lindsey's birthday party the day before.

The main challenge was securing le dinde, the turkey It's not a common delicacy in France, so we searched  a while to find a place to buy one, finally discovering a butcher not far the house who could not only order us one (no, they don't keep them in stock), but also cook it. All ('all') Toni had to do was prepare the rest of the stuff --potatoes, stuffing, green bean -- ya know, stuff - to surround the bird and we were good to go. I, as usual, was on beverage detail, remarkably easy in France given the availability of good wine and the relatively modest beer consumption here (thankfully so - we have a typically small French refrigerator and ice seems not to have been invented yet here in France so I'm not sure how I would have managed if we needed island-levels of beer - i.e. multiple coolers).

Board games. A bit more civilized than we 're used to

Candie and I set off in the the afternoon to pick  up the prepared turkey at the butcher, only to find the place closed when we arrived. 'Mon Dieu, this could be a minor disaster if they're close for the day,' we both thought out loud (Candie didn't say the Mon Dieu bit - I have picked up penchant for using French terms like that that are easy to say but imply a deeper expertise in the language). Visions of picking through the Carrefour aisles an hour before people would start arriving entered my head. Of course, we quickly found out that they weren't closed for the day, only the extended French lunch hour. We had a couple of quick drinks (Candie: two thumbs down on Pastis) and returned to pick up the bird.

Toni outdid herself with a great spread and every one enjoyed the American style feast, complete with the football games on the PC in the background. The crowd filed out obediently just after 11, which is typically when our island parties just kick in.

Caspar squeezes into Chico's designer couch to sleep off his turkey dinner

But it was a very pleasant, civilized Thanksgiving and we realized we could adjust if we needed to. Quietly afterwards we reflected on how much we do have to be thankful for. And how quickly time was passing on our France adventure.