Thanksgiving in Lugo

 11.23.12

First, this:

 
Yeah, The Peanuts theme song.  'Cause the holidays are officially here, & I'd like you to read this post with that song playing in your head ;)

Yesterday was Thanksgiving Day!  And my first Thanksgiving in Spain.  I honestly thought I would be melancholy all day because I was missing my family and wishing I could see my loved ones in Florida, but I actually had a much more lovely time than I expected.  I was blessed to spend the evening/night with several other auxiliares; mostly American, although 1 Scottish and 1 Irish girl also attended for their very first Thanksgiving ever :)  It was a great time.  We all cooked something and brought it all to the wonderful Ryan & Maris's apartment, and there was an abundance of food, drinks, and laughter. 

In a way it's hard to describe, but I feel like celebrating Thanksgiving here, so far from home & all of our families, really brought out the spirit of the holiday.  Everyone was so grateful to be here in Spain, to have met so many lovely people, and to be able to gather to enjoy each others' company and actually express our thanks.  It brought us back to basics, in a way.  I think it is very easy, especially when you are within your comfort zone (e.g. home), to take things for granted and to get caught up in things that really shouldn't matter... Commericialization of the holidays (cough black friday cough), worrying about things being "perfect" for dinner & company, even petty arguments or disagreements.  Although I did miss my family very much yesterday, I am glad to say that I passed an extremely enjoyable evening with some extremely enjoyable people, and it did exactly what the holiday is supposed to-- remind me to be thankful.

Heh, perhaps that's enough introspection on that topic... here are some pictures!  I didn't get too many, but as soon as I find one of the group shots that was taken on facebook, I'll put it up here, too :)

  My contribution to our feast was baked butternut squash (and 2 bottles of cider ;) ).

 

 It might betray some ignorance, but I had never really been conscious of what a butternut squash looked like fresh & uncooked (I always picture an acorn squash, for some reason).  I had NO IDEA how difficult they were to cut and peel.  That knife was stuck for a while...

 This was after I had finally succeeded in carving up the little one, and had just sliced the big one in half.  All using only that big-@$$ knife and spoon.

 One hour and several blisters later-- finally all cubed!

After it finished baking with garlic, olive oil, and some seasoning; I like that you can see some steam rising in this picture ^__^.  That's Julia's green bean casserole in the background, before it went in the oven.

This was my view from the end of the table; hard to get everything that was happening!  But we had a good-sized group :)

 Action shots ;)  We opted for 2 chickens (a la Meg) instead of 1 turkey, because those you have to special order and we wouldn't have gotten it in time.

 Gwen (Annia's husky) was so good!  She didn't try to steal anyone's food, even though she could have easily reached all the plates.

 Tina, Laura (our Irish friend), and Mary :)

 Julia y yo

Annia & Meagan (I met Meagan for the first time last night; turns out she studied exactly what I did in college! Linguistics, TESL, and Spanish. Funny.)

 Champagne & desserts!

 Lemon cheesecake... mmm.

That table was practically as full of desserts as it was of food!

I don't know how accurately the pictures have captured it, but it was a very warm, happy, good-for-your-soul night :)

God bless, everyone!  I hope that you all had a love-filled Thanksgiving as well <3