24 November, 2007

THANKSGIVING IN MADRID

Needless to say, Thanksgiving is not a Spanish holiday. Assumption Day, Ascension Day, dozens of saints days and the entire month of August are holidays but we were surrounded by about 4,000,000 people who had no idea why we took the girls out of school! (As an aside, you can buy a turkey here though it’s not something the Spanish eat. And the price matched…about US$4.50/pound!)

Taylor was totally freaked out about how the holidays were going to be so different and Thanksgiving without the cousins in Dallas and running the Turkey Trot just wasn’t going to be any Thanksgiving at all. But she totally underestimated her mother!

While I went out for a glorious long run in Casa de Campo, Taylor baked a pumpkin pie and Becca/Laura Macie chocolate mousse. After that, she and the girls spent the morning at the police station getting fingerprinted for their residency cards. We should have them about the time we head back to the US.

But when they returned, we dragged our bags full of US Thanksgiving goodies, we walked over to our friends Chris and Kathy Cooper for the full on deal with turkey, dressing, gravy mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and on and on. They did a terrific job at moving their apartment 3000 miles west for an afternoon. Two other Americans joined us and we had a day that would have been recognizable in just about any house in America. We missed our families and we managed to recreate a sense of belonging that will be a Thanksgiving we’ll remember.

2 comments:

Willie Baronet said...

What a cool adventure! Probably one of the TG holidays your kids will remember. We spent ours in Buenos Aires and ate sushi for lunch. :-)

Lemme know if you want to see the pix!

Kathleen Knight-Abowitz said...

hi !

It's been a long while since I checked your blog and I was happy for the updates, though I do think that i have a mental block on checking your blog for the simple reason of pure envy. That subconscious pettiness aside....

My goodness the girls and big and gorgeous. Your pix, your stories, and also the update on your dad in the news have all been great to read.

Give my best to Becca. We are all well here. Snow on the ground, driving home to VA on Friday and then up to Philly/NY for time with Rob's family afterwards. Life for us is family routines, local politics (trying to get a school bond issue passed this fall -- nope, didn't happen), friends, kids' activities, crosswords, reading fiction, feeding the chickens, work at the University.... All fine, more or less. We're all healthy. And, heading to Italy in the summer of 08 for a big family trip -- my dad is renting us all a house in Tuscany for a week. If the dollar keeps up this plunge we won't be able to afford to eat while we're there, but....Italy!!!

love you,
Kath(a)leen