A Scotland Thanksgiving

Happy Belated Thanksgiving ya'll! Well, I'd say I have a lot to be thankful for, being able to live in Scotland for a few months, having a family who supports me in all I do, friends who are always there for me, a pretty neat boyfriend, and of course, my lovely readers (that's you :D)

I got real sad when the grand day approached, Thanksgiving is literally my favorite holiday because it isn't clouded by gifts and the true focus is togetherness. In a way, I was definitely lacking the togetherness piece over here: I mean the vast majority of my friends and family were back home, and it just doesn't feel right to miss the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and hear my family complain about not seeing enough of the floats ;) In a way though, it was really funny- I was messaging a friend from back home and she said it was better to celebrate Thanksgiving in Scotland because, 'At least they hate the English as much as the Pilgrams did!' How true indeed :D

So instead of doing anything traditional during the day, I got up at 8 to go to class and then I finished and turned in a paper. I thought I would treat myself and buy a mocha so I used my reusable mug, bought a small, and then received a large! Now that's the Thanksgiving spirit and they didn't even know it :)

Anyway, in preparation the six of us in our flat (all American except the lone Canadian- she celebrates Thanksgiving too, just in October!) gathered together what we saw most fitting for the occasion, and my oh my it twas a spread! Turkey breast loaf (our oven was too ghetto and probably too small to fit a whole turkey), gravy, vegetarian stuffing, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, mulled wine, and of course pumpkin pie.

We made the pumpkin pie the previous night, and in lieu in Crisco (because they don't have any over here…) we used lard. As repulsive as it was to deal with it at the time, it was probably the best pie crust I've ever eaten :)

The battle on Thursday was trying to time everything correctly. To give you a picture we have two small ovens, definitely inappropriate for making a classy meal like Thanksgiving. An added difficulty was the fact that we had class to work around- a couple of tutorials might have been skipped to make a grocery trip for crispy onions, but it was totally worth it! We had another individual, *cough* Anjali *cough* who found out while she was in class at 4 that it would be going until 6…the problem being that our food was all done at 5, whoops! With a little bit of rehydrating the food, and warming it up in the handy dandy microwave, I'd say we were all a force to be reckoned with (none of us had ever prepared such a feast!) I didn't even ruin the turkey- probably one of my proudest moments :)

In between checking the turkey and mashing the potatoes I was able to Skype with the fam for quite some time. It was an absolute day maker to be able to see them all- I don't remember the last time that happened all at once! Anjali came in for a while to talk with them too and it was fun to hear them joke back and forth- it was like they had known each other for years! I was lucky enough to talk to her family as well, they're great. As much of a bummer as it was to not spend Thanksgiving with my family, I wouldn't have had the experience of talking to both of our families on the same day if I had been back home.

As strange as it was to be celebrating with non-family members, it was really neat to see how we could all bring it together like that, and celebrate together in a country where such a holiday doesn't exist (side note: If you were wondering they have Christmas decorations and music up pretty much after Halloween, I even saw advertisements for reserving Christmas dinner in early October!)We were able to experience dealing with we had: bringing in mismatching chairs, attempting to find enough silver wear, and washing the dishes to reuse before eating pie. Anyway, we shared our traditions and appropriately finished the night singing both the Canadian and American National Anthems- so fun!

So until Sunday, I'll leave you with this!

Love you all,
Emily

This is what we cook on…somehow...

The Flats-giving :)