Early Thanksgiving

We had a really fun evening tonight with Phil and Mel, two of Terry's coworkers who arrived in Albania about a month after we did. Also present for the festivities was Kristela, an Albanian coworker who lived in the US for 5 years and was waxing nostalgic for an American holiday.

Phil and Mel (I got the impression it was mostly Mel!) knocked themselves out with some fantastic holiday fare including candied nuts, a ball of goat cheese encrusted with cranberries and more nuts, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, baklava, pumpkin pie, carrots stewed in the turkey broth, gravy, and of course turkey. Christmas music played in the background and after eating we watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. Valerie liked watching Snoopy clown around with Woodstock, but was VERY VERY UPSET when Lucy pulled the football away from Charlie Brown.

I didn't really grow up with Thanksgiving being a big part of our family life but it was still fun to hang out and eat good food and participate in a long-standing expat tradition - recreating Thanksgiving overseas.

Phil very kindly took this picture of the four of us, a rarity!