This week, though, I took a bit of time out of my student schedule to make my first Thanksgiving meal myself and celebrate my first Thanksgiving away from home. This post may be a bit sappy, which is a different turn from my usual, but hey, "if you can't tell the truth at [the holidays] then when can you?" (name that movie)
I was feeling a bit down at the beginning of the week as Thanksgiving was approaching. I realize that I've been so fortunate to be able to spend all of my holidays with my family until now and that the experience I am having here is the best thing, but it's still a bit hard to be away from home this time of year.
The funny part...
Now, even though I promised sap, this story starts out like a typical "Liz" story. In London, they don't really sell turkey like they do in the States. Especially at this time of year. That said, I ordered one online through Tesco to be delivered to me, frozen, on Tuesday evening after I would arrive back from class. I was Skyping with my parents and Grandma when the Tesco Man called letting me know he was downstairs. I quickly said goodbye and ran downstairs in slippers and without a coat.
When I got to the courtyard of my building, the Tesco Man was standing in the bushes (yes, like actually sort of in the bushes) in total darkness because of course the lights weren't working at a moment like this and just held out a crate to me. With his eyes, he told me to take the turkey out of the crate and handed me a receipt. The turkey was not in a bag. It was just a frozen turkey. Just like that.
I grabbed the turkey out of the crate, said thank you very quickly, and started to run back into the building because the block of ice turkey was starting to freeze to my skin. I am looking at the turkey in my arms as I run up 4 flights of stairs whisper yelling "it's so cold it's so cold it's so cold" and realize that this turkey is tiny. It's like a baby turkey. I cannot emphasize enough about how small this turkey looked to me at the time. It was small, but in my panic and frozen arms, it looked like it was no larger than a newborn baby bird.
To set the stage - I had ordered a turkey to feed 11-14 people (I had invited 12 to my dinner) and at this point in time, 20 people were now coming. How, I do not know. So I'm looking down at this infant turkey wondering how in the hell I'm going to feed 20 people when it looks like it would feed about 6 children. Spoiler alert - it was fine, but only in the sense that it was cooked perfectly and everyone got to taste it. We did not get full on turkey. See: making extra potatoes.
The next hour is spent on Skype with my family cry-laughing and attempting to wrap the turkey in plastic bags to carry it down to a friend's fridge.
Back to sap...
On Wednesday, I baked a few pies and some cornbread with my friend Nora. She is from Germany and we haven't gotten to know each other too well yet. It was so nice to spend a few hours baking and talking with a new friend. We got to reflect on our own family traditions, talk about how we both think that London is amazing, and just generally girly things. It really got me in the holiday mood and with the smell of freshly baked pies and Christmas lights, I was feeling a bit better.
Thursday morning was again, a bit tough, but I had invited a small army to dinner, so onward I went! I made the obligatory "oops" trip to the grocery store to pick up the few things I was missing and then got cooking!
A few of my friends came over, Susana and Vicky, both from Spain, and helped me to prepare the small feast. I was able to Skype with my family again briefly and finished up the cooking at the time I actually planned to serve it! A THANKSGIVING MIRACLE.
We carried the food up to the top floor common room. Here's what it looked like.
And the turkey up close.
All in all, I made a turkey that (after a lot of man handling and a small freak out about the neck rolling around inside of it - this was discovered a long time after I pulled out the bag with the other insides) turned out great, sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, mashed potatoes, cornbread, cranberry salad, green bean casserole, stuffing, pumpkin soup, roasted veggies, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and even homemade gravy. I'm so proud of myself that I actually was able to pull this off! I've never before cooked for that many people and I've definitely never made a turkey. It was delicious!
Before we ate, I made everyone go around the table and say what they were thankful for. As there was only me and one other American, the "thankful" thing went a little over the top and we ended up applauding everyone after they spoke. It was actually really cute and I got all mushy feeling over it.
Even though the last few weeks have been oh so stressful (thanks, grad school), I'm still forever thankful for all of the things I've gotten to experience over the last few months and days like yesterday make me realize that this was the best decision of my life.
Happy Thanksgiving.
