November 30, 2014

I knew this year’s Thanksgiving couldn’t feel remotely the same since we usually see my family and watch Longhorn football on tv. However, we decided to celebrate as best as we could here.

On Thanksgiving I celebrated with my kindergarten class. We made turkeys, an animal they are not familiar with, and we made mashed potatoes. For some reason we mixed mayonnaise and corn into the mashed potatoes? It didn’t taste that bad, but where did they get the idea?

Making turkeys

Mashing the potatoes and mixing in the corn and mayo

After my kids finished the mashed potatoes we got to eat them with some chicken. The kids were pretty confused about the concept of eating turkey on Thanksgiving since chicken is all they really know – at least where birds are concerned.

Our little Thanksgiving snack

After we ate we went upstairs to join the rest of the kindergarteners for a screening of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.” I don’t think the kids really understood the traditions they saw but they really enjoyed Snoopy’s antics. Then we watched a really old Pluto cartoon where Pluto and a cat are fighting over a turkey. Every time the turkey came up on screen the kids would yell, “Chicken!” Turkey is a lesson for another time I suppose.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Since Thanksgiving was a regular work day for us, even with the kindergarten activities, it didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving. We decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner with the other foreign teachers at our school, Paul and Pamela, on Friday night so that we could enjoy ourselves and not have to worry about work in the morning.

On Friday night Zach, Truman, and I gathered at Paul and Pam’s place for fried chicken (for some Korean authenticity), mashed potatoes (without corn and mayo), veggies, and deviled eggs. For dessert we had cinnamon rolls, a tiny chocolate pie, and a tiny crumbly pie of some sort. We also had sangria, Korean beer, and soju. It was quite the feast. Although it wasn’t a regular Thanksgiving meal, it still achieved the purpose of bringing new people together to give thanks and be grateful for our lot in life. (Unfortunately, I enjoyed myself too much to remember to take photos!)

I’ll end with more photos from the SLP Thanksgiving.