Thanksgiving in a Foreign Land

"Can we plan Thanksgiving? Can we? Please? Canwecanwecanwe???" Muttered responses, noncommittal smiles were all I received. No one seemed to be as concerned or as interested in recreating this strange but lovely American tradition. Or maybe they knew it would be CRAZY. And Thanksgiving was fast approaching! In the mail, I received some terribly punny Thanksgiving stickers from my Mumsy, to be used on Thanksgiving placemats. It was a sign! We had to have Thanksgiving! 

So, when invited over to do homework, I ambushed my friends. "Who should we invite to Thanksgiving?" This was the worst part of planning, the part I was dreading. When we had named all of the people who we normally hang out with, the list numbered 15. Then we had to pick from the list of 17 "maybes". Boy, did I feel like a Queen Bee. We argued and debated about who garnered an invite and why. At 1:00AM I left the apartment with a list of 26 people, with 6 starred as "probably won't come". 

The venue: 4 friends' apartment. The menu: traditional Thanksgiving food. My task: to invite everyone, assign them all a food to bring and figure out how to fit so many people in an apartment.

People were actually incredibly willing to help plan. I roped some friends into helping me figure out how much and what kind of foods people should bring, often just suggesting that people brings their favorite Thanksgiving food. Normally, I don't care about what I eat at Thanksgiving dinner, as long as the staples are on the table, but invited to this meal were several not-American friends and I wanted them to get a taste of a true Thanksgiving.

A traditional decoration in my house: oranges with cloves stuck in.
We put these around the apartment so it would smell and look lovely. 

Throughout the week, I continued to invite people. I grew more and more excited, spending more time looking up recipes than studying for my Hebrew midterm. I kept putting off doing anything, knowing I couldn't truly prepare until Thursday. 

Thursday arrived. It was strange to get up in the morning and go to Hebrew class. After class, I bought a boquet of beautiful flowers (not much different than a normal Thursday, but these were color-coordinated with the rest of the table decorations for the evening) and headed home. I called a trusty friend who I knew was planning on cooking and cleaning with me all day. I walked into his apartment, pushed up my sleeves and asked for some cleaner and a rag. "What are you going to start with?" he asked. "The walls!" I responded. I spend most of my time in his apartment anyways, so knew exactly what I wanted to clean. The walls were covered in scuff marks and pencil lines. I began scrubbing furiously at them, not knowing that he thought I was crazy. We cleaned for three hours and then headed over to my place to make the food so we wouldn't have to dirty the sparkling apartment.

The dishes I was brining: mashed potatoes, chive cheese mashed potatoes (a staple of my family's Thanksgivings), apple sauce with pomegranate seeds, and spiced candied pecans. Let the madness begin. 

An hour later, my apartment was filled with people. Some working on decorations (hand turkeys, turkeys to be hung from the ceilings etc.), some cooking (stuffed peppers, stuff mushrooms, all of my food). We showered and hurried out, leaving it an absolute disaster. People began to carry chairs over to the apartment where the meal was to be held. The only problem with this part of the plan was that everyone BUT the four people who live in the hosting apartment live in building 6. Processions of people carried dishes, flowers, drinks, decorations and chairs. 

Everyone arrived looking beautiful in their nice, but stretchable, clothes. Friends had decorated the apartment and were setting the dishes in their proper places. The couches and chairs had been moved into people's rooms and 2 long desks brought up. It looked lovely and the air was filled with excitement. I had spent the entire day jumping up and down talking about how excited I was. I had spent the entire week being controlling and bossy. I had spent the whole afternoon cooking and cleaning. My friends had all brought food and decorations and their lovely selves. Let Thanksgiving begin. 

The chaos lasted for 15 minutes, everyone smiling and happy, looking at the food, hugging each other, trying to navigate in the tiny room. Eventually we got everyone to sit down and the meal began. A friend who is incredibly eloquent and always seems to start our meals stood up. He commented on how far we had all come, from the building right next door or from Jordan (a few friends he had visiting). He invited us to say something that we were thankful for. People spoke up when they felt like it, saying they were thankful for silly and serious things. Above all, it seemed that people were thankful for their loved ones. 

I felt similarly. I spent much of the night watching my friends eat and talk and laugh while in the kitchen. It was a moment that I felt I must preserve in my memory. I am so thankful for all the amazing people that I have met here, the people who invite me to experience new things with them, the people who are excited to learn what I have to share with them. I could not wish for a better group of people to spend my time in Israel with. I have felt myself growing rather melancholy lately whenever I think about how much fun I have with the people that I have met here. In only a month, people will begin to depart, going back to their real lives. We will be scattered far and wide again, our brief moment with each other, randomly thrown into Jerusalem together, just a memory. Bittersweet. 

My organizationally adept friend told us how dinner would work and he and I rose and began to serve people. We grabbed our own plates and put a spoonful of everything on before passing the dish to a table. My worry that there would not be enough food was soon soothed. I realized how absurd this worry was when I looked at the pile of bread in the corner. I had asked 4-5 people to bring enough bread for half of the group. Somehow, we had ended up with enough bread for about 100 people!  And I just kept finding more and more dishes! 

Green beans and garlic; quinoa with eggplant; sauteed eggplant; mashed potatoes; chive cheese mashed potatoes; stuffed mushrooms; bread; beets and carrots; 3 different salads...I can't even remember all of the dishes! 

After passing out all of the vegetables and grains that we could find, he and I sat down for a brief second and attempted to scarf down our food. "Ok, here comes the main course!" I said. "There is a main course?!" people asked. "Is it bad if I am already full?" A Canadian friend inquired. I just laughed and we began to serve the stuffed red peppers (with cheese, rice, peas in a delicious tomato sauce). 

Next came dessert. An apple, cranberry pie; 6 different types of ice cream; my applesauce; chocolate-filled strawberries; sweet potatoes with marshmallows...

I had to pile the dessert on the side of my plate not still full of food. I was so full! Everything had been absolutely delicious. All of a sudden, everyone was in the kitchen, under the direction of a friend. In 15 minutes, everything was miraculously clean (everyone had been asked to bring their own plates/utensils/cups). I had not lifted a finger, which I was really excited about. People here seem to think I love doing dishes, when really I just do them because somebody has to. 

And I got a vision. Of myself as an old woman with TONS of children and grandchildren, having HUGE meals, surrounded by tons of food and so much love. And I was pretty damn satisfied with the image. 

The evening continued, people slowly drifting out, clearing out chairs and dishes. We sang and chatted, eventually heading to bed late at night. It was a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving. (ALSO, it was an entirely vegetarian dinner! We had a 25 person vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner!) 

For more, read this: http://carloantonio.wordpress.com/ and http://georginadancesjerusalem.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/thursday-november-24th-2011-thanksgiving-in-israel/