Thanksgiving Celebrations!

So, when the American student in my swedish class who spent Thanksgiving by himself last year started decribing in drooling detail the pleasures of a traditional Thanksgiving meal (and how to use the leftovers) to the other forgeign students, we decided I should host a proper celebration.

So I did...I made (for the first time ever!) a roast turkey, stuffing, broccoli casserole, sweet potatoe casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie. We had an authentic American Thanksgiving in Sweden, complete with all the trimmings including board games between meal and pumpkin pie, with my fellow swedish language students- from New York, Switzerland, and Japan.
The canned pumpkin for the pie filing was purchased at the 'ethnic food store' Gray's American Eats. I drove 25 miles both ways, and paid $4.50 a can!!!
The $6 can of Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce, in all it's glory. My favorite quote of the night:

Q: "What is this? What do you do with it?"

A: "That's Gravy....." WARNING: The Game Cranium has a distinct cultural element, and when playing with people of other cultures, you may need to edit questions for cultural fairness, as not every young Japanesse boy will recognize your Martha Stwerat impression, even if you DID brine the turkey per her "Living" Magazine! Perhaps we will choose Yahtzee for our next multicultural game expereince. We also felt the need to have family Thanksgiving, so we did it all over again the next day, and introduced Thanksgiving foods and the feeling of being over stuffed to our Swedish relatives. Again, lots of comments along the lines of "Oh, this is good, I have never tasted anything like this food...." The amount of food consumed at the ten person family gathering was slightly less than that consumed by the student gathering. Twenty year olds who live in dorms, have had only boiled 'korv' and meatballs and no proper meal in three months can seriously EAT!!! Preparations made for charades- she wanted to make sure there was NO TALKING!!!! (or maybe using all the tape was just FUN.)

We also managed to go to Thanksgiving dinner the next day as guests of one of our daughter's new preschool friends, who has a dad from New York.

We.Are.Stuffed!!! (and it was all soooo good!)

Who says there is no Thanksgiving in Sweden?!!!!