Gobble, gobble!

When I walked in to get Simon after he woke up from his nap this afternoon, he did his usual flurry of signs, pointing out animals in the room. Then he flexed his big muscles and yelled "Ti!" and looked around for his uncle Ti. I hated to be the one to break the news that Ti and Lena were on a train headed back home. I think he was disappointed after such a great weekend.

This weekend has been a year in the making. After learning that my Dutch cousin Lena had never celebrated Thanksgiving (her mother is American!), I felt strongly that this had to be remedied. And so the wheels were set in motion...

Their visit was also perfectly timed with the opening of the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) here in Düsseldorf. So the first night we spent under the sparkling Christmas lights, taking in the aroma of bratwursts, reibekuchen, and glühwein. It's such a fun time of year here - it's festive and the food options seem to be limitless.

Sunday finally rolled around and we got to work with the turkey. I should say that I am usually simply a Thanksgiving consumer, not used to being involved in the preparation. So in some ways, it was my first Thanksgiving too! I wanted to keep it simple, so we did turkey drumsticks, mashed sweet potatoes, a goat cheese and pomegranate salad, and Martin did the stuffing. For dessert - pumpkin cookies, of course! Needless to say the meal was delicious. If we use Ti to measure the deliciousness, I think the fact that he had 4ths is a very good sign.

First Thanksgiving for all!

What we had been telling Lena and Ti about Thanksgiving, was that it's very relaxed and mostly involves eating and sitting on the couch watching football. In this relaxed spirit, we introduced out own tradition of wearing sweatpants! It was a huge success, and I think it should be a part of everyone's Turkey Day tradition.