Thanksgiving!

(Thanks for the picture, Jay!)
Ok I'm totally labeling this picture with my family's names. Starting with guy in hat at the back and going clockwise: Dad, Mom, Uncle Rob, Nana, Auntie Ellen, Papa, (weird grape thing doesn't count), Ed, Me, Auntie Kay, Steven. haha. You guys definitely see it; don't deny it.

So this past Thursday was the fourth Thursday in November. In the USA, that means it's Thanksgiving and you get a 4-day weekend and you watch the Macy's parade and eat tons of food with your family. In the UK, it's just another day: you get up and go to work and come home. Lame.

So I went to work for the day.

The Sunday Times, aka the bane of my existence, aka the place where I waste ~25 hours of my time every week. The office is on the 5th floor.

Here's a picture of me "working" at The Sunday Times. This picture is going in my portfolio (due Monday) so I figured I'd share it here, too. The funny thing is that I asked someone to take my picture, and he said he was busy now, but he would in a little bit. And when he came over to take my picture, I was in the middle of writing an email, so I had to X out of that and open up the Times website to make it look like I was actually working. lol. And I'm at Claire's desk, so most of the things on the desk are hers -- only the notebook and pen on my left are mine.

Anyway, back to Thanksgiving day. I had some phone calls to make in the morning, but I had nothing to do in the afternoon. So, after twiddling my thumbs for 4 hours, I asked if I could leave when 5:30 rolled around. (I normally work until 6.) They let me, and when I told them about the holiday, the editors wished me a happy Thanksgiving.

I came home and called my family on Skype. It was nice to see and talk to them. I think they were all impressed with the webcam's capabilities.

Then I wandered into the kitchen and my friends and I all began making Thanksgiving dinner. We were making chicken breasts instead of turkey, because turkeys are hard to find and expensive in the UK. We tried to buy a pre-made turkey, but it would have cost us 75 pounds ($150) for a 10-pound turkey. Also, some of the reporters at work told me to stay away from turkey because of the avian flu. So we decided to stick with chicken. I found an easy recipe online involving garlic, parmesan and bread crumbs, and so I made the chicken. It turned out really well. The only problem was that our oven is not that great and we were trying to cook sweet potatoes and the chicken at the same time, so it took over an hour to cook. But everyone loved it (or at least said they did). (Yes, those of you who know the extent of my cooking skills can close your mouths and pick yourselves up off the floor: I actually cooked a successful meal.) So here is what was on the menu for our Thanksgiving: cheese and crackers, bread, chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, carrots, green beans, cranberry sauce (homemade), stuffing, and a fruit cocktail-marshmallow salad. Here is a picture of our feast:


Everything was delicious and we had sooo much food which means we had a ton of leftovers.

Chatting at dinner.

Then it was time for dessert, undeniably the best part of Thanksgiving.

Our dessert table. 2 pumpkin pies, a chocolate almond cake, 2 cookie platters, a cookie and whipped cream goo (really good). Plus we had cupcakes and an apple pie that was in the oven. We had a lot of dessert and thus a lot of leftovers.

Everyone at dessert

Yum.

So Thanksgiving was a success! I was worried about it at first because I knew that I would miss my family and I was sad that I was missing the one day of the year where I see both my mom's and dad's sides of the family. But I got to talk to my family on the webcam and we had a delicious dinner and so many people sent me emails or messages wishing me happy Thanksgiving that I had a great day and felt very loved and very thankful for everything. Overall, great day.

Getting up the next morning was not so great, considering we started making dinner at 7:00ish and then ate and hung out and cleaned up and didn't go to bed until 2ish. But hey, it was worth it.

I would definitely recommend that the UK jump on the Thanksgiving bandwagon, though. It's so sad to live a life without Thanksgiving.