It's our first Thanksgiving away from the States and I have to admit, I was a little nervous about recreating the entire experience. No matter where you are and how you feel about the place, when it comes to holidays, it's hard to beat your memories of years past - somehow we all romanticize the days of yore.
So I started preparation early. I found a wonderful store in the Marais that has everything you would need for an American Thanksgiving, the name says it all "Thanksgiving in Paris." So we hike over from the 16th Arrondisement to the 4th and preorder our turkey. It's a lovely little shop and full of food stuffs that you miss - barbecue sauce to salsa, cereal to pop tarts. Even has Dr. Pepper!
We always invited lots of people to share Thanksgiving with us - our motto is no one should be alone on Thanksgiving and the more the merrier. So this year should be no different, except for the fact that we don't exactly have the apartment geared towards entertaining. Oops - once the headcount was done it turns out that we invited over 17 people! And I had to upgrade the turkey! Thank God one of our friends (whom we had invited) has a bigger place so we adjusted our plans and moved locations - they provided the space and we would cook the turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans and potatoes. And in true Thanksgiving tradition, there was plenty of food, plenty of laughs and plenty of thankfulness.
So I started preparation early. I found a wonderful store in the Marais that has everything you would need for an American Thanksgiving, the name says it all "Thanksgiving in Paris." So we hike over from the 16th Arrondisement to the 4th and preorder our turkey. It's a lovely little shop and full of food stuffs that you miss - barbecue sauce to salsa, cereal to pop tarts. Even has Dr. Pepper!
We always invited lots of people to share Thanksgiving with us - our motto is no one should be alone on Thanksgiving and the more the merrier. So this year should be no different, except for the fact that we don't exactly have the apartment geared towards entertaining. Oops - once the headcount was done it turns out that we invited over 17 people! And I had to upgrade the turkey! Thank God one of our friends (whom we had invited) has a bigger place so we adjusted our plans and moved locations - they provided the space and we would cook the turkey, cranberry sauce, green beans and potatoes. And in true Thanksgiving tradition, there was plenty of food, plenty of laughs and plenty of thankfulness.
It turned out to be a lovely evening - we ate way too much, almost drank too much wine (thankfully we stopped before it was too late! LOL) and had so much fun with our new friends. I am thankful for them and for this wonderful adventure we are experiencing. I am truly blessed. Happy Thanksgiving!