Celebrating Thanksgiving in the Mother Country...

After much excitement, we Thanksgiving finally arrived. With the day itself arrived John from Switzerland (he finally arrived at 2am on Thanksgiving day) and a ton of great food. After staying up talking to John for entirely too long, I slept for a few hours. I woke up later that same day to start cooking. After making pie crust and pumpkin pie from scratch (I literally started with pumpkins because England doesn't know what canned pumpkin is) I started washing dishes and helping around the kitchen. Everything came together in plenty of time and it was a relatively relaxed day. We had hors d'oeuvres served at five and dinner was served at six. Our guests included (aside from the nine flatmates and Mark and Carol) Mary's parents (Frona and Ricky! they are so much fun...), Kate and David Juggins, and John. Even though the guest list wasn't that big, sixteen people is a lot of people. After an appropriate beginning of giving thanks, courtesy of Carol, we all dug into the food. The list of dishes we had is simply staggering, but included such things as: deviled eggs, mushroom rolls, turkey, stuffing/dressing. gravy, special mashed potatoes (with or without mushrooms), candied sweet potatoes (with or without marshmallows on top), green bean casserole (with or without oniony things on top), five hour rolls, cranberry sauce, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and rice pudding and wine and several other things I am sure I am forgetting. Needless to say, no one went hungry and we will be eating left overs for the next five days. It was an impressive spread and it was all served on beautifully decorated candlelit tables. It was so much fun to have so many people all together, eating, talking, and laughing. It was actually quite loud and a generally boisterous meal.

Today I have two classes, one of which John is coming to bc Kevin, Brandon and I (and Mary, Em, and Aaron) are all in and well, it will be somewhat amusing. After classes are done, we have a weekend of excitement ahead of us. The Forest/Milwall game on Saturday, a couple live bands are playing at our favorite pub, and who knows what else. (Homework? maybe? well, I guess that is what Sundays are for...)

I hope everyone at home had a wonderful thanksgiving with family and friends. I miss you all, but the comments, emails, and phonecalls are much appreciated. Have a great long weekend!