Catching up- November

The school term ended in the third week of November, leaving us with a six week winter break. Just before that, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving! We had several Americans, a Canadian, a Tanzanian-American, a German, and a Kenyan born, Canadian-American toddler who lives in Tanzania. : )

One of the Americans in our village told me that Thanksgiving was her favourite holiday, so I thought it would be nice to make it as festive and special as possible. We are able to get a lot of traditional Thanksgiving foods in our village, and I even found cranberry sauce at the imported-foods supermarket in Mwanza! We opted on chicken instead of turkey, because turkey would have been over $100, but it was still delicious and thanksgivingy! We also held the dinner almost two weeks before Thanksgiving in America (and a good month late for Canada), because that was when we were all available, but that doesn't matter!

We ended up having a really lovely evening with wonderful people and wonderful food. Everyone pitched in and brought something. I made gluten free dressing and gluten free pumpkin pie, so that Abram, David and I would be sure to get some. (The pie was completely gone by the end of the evening- everyone had some!) And I roasted the chickens. I also set the table, and took care to make it look simple and elegant. I cut leaves out of coloured paper and had fun trying to come up with fall/harvest decorations. (Meaning, I cut leaves out of coloured paper. And then put a candle and some fresh flowers in the centre of the table.) I was pleased with how it turned out, though. I don't know if anyone cares but me- but I was happy with it.

We fit ten people plus David's high chair around our enormous dining room table! 

Thanksgiving isn't my favourite holiday, but this was my first time hosting it, and I found myself looking forward to it all week, searching for perfect chicken roasting recipes on my phone instead of getting work done, and mentally changing the table layout in my head. I really enjoyed the entire thing, and can't wait to celebrate next year!

Chickens here are really small, so we roasted three!

The lineup

Chatting over pie and tea.

On the actual date of (American) Thanksgiving, Abram lit a fire in our fireplace for the first time (rainy season is cold...ish, especially when you have louver windows that never close), and I made gingerbread cookies. We sat on the couch, listening to Christmas music and staring at the fire. It was a really lovely way to kick off the Christmas season.