Thanksgiving Feast

Well, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope yours went well. For our thanksgiving... Ania and I decide to invite our neighbors to come and take part in an American Tradition! Ania helped write out the Polish for the invitations, and I typed them up and we went knocking on doors. First you must understand that this is not a cultural thing here in Poland. Neighbors do not go out of their way to build friendship. Ania and I were really encouraged to hear the excitement in peoples voices as they received their invitations. So we were off...

neither of us knew how many people were coming... So I planned for 25 people and started praying that if there were more, God would multiply the food! This was the first time I had ever prepared this meal before. I called my mom for family recipes, searched the internet, and found a good pie cooker here in town (my teammate Marti).

preparing Thanksgiving was an adventure for me here in this country. From shopping with my dictionary trying to find spices (note to companies, I will not buy your product in Poland unless there is a photo on the front of what it is) to carrying home 125 pounds of groceries in two backpacks and a purse 1 whole mile.

We couldn't get a whole turkey so I bought mine in parts (thinking I could stick it back together with toothpicks) but getting some better advice, ended up pounding it flat and rolling up the stuffing in it. With the turkey we had mashed potatoes, stuffing, dinner roles (yes they are bread, not cakes), applesauce, corn pudding, gravy, coleslaw, jello salad, any type of mayonnaise salad, and of course pumpkin pie!

The neighbors loved it. We ended up having 16 people come. One really exciting thing, most of the time people will come and eat then leave... But everyone was having such a good time that they stayed and chatted for 4 hours!

God was so good, They wanted to hear me play the pschikia... Violin (I hate trying to say it). I played with Tillie on guitar, then we sang some songs together with them. It was really nice!

Even the kids had fun. I think we found some new kids to come to Ania's kids club.

All in all it was a great day. I felt like I had celebrated thanksgiving with family and I got to meet our neighbors. I even found a Polish teacher!

Now I have so much more to be thankful for!