Thanksgiving in India

Well, here it is the day after Thanksgiving and I'm having a real hard time getting into the holiday spirit. It is interesting living in a country where Thanksgiving and Christmas are not celebrated. I'm not sure if it is the weather (which really feels more like mid September than the end of November), the lack of Christmas music wherever you go, the lack of Christmas decorations around the house, the fact that we don't have all the TV commercials reminding us to go buy that perfect gift for that special someone, or exactly what. However it is clear that the whole holiday season thing hasn't really sunk in yet for me.

Michelle and Becca are gone to the market to purchase a Christmas Tree (artificial, of course) and we'll start decorating later today or tomorrow. We didn't bring our Christmas decorations (see the previous post about the interesting things that come when you move around the world and the things that get left behind), so we are missing the tradition of redecorating the house with the turn of the season. So I figure the lack of the holiday spirit is a temporary situation that will be remedied soon.

While Michelle and Becca are gone, I put on Christmas music, gathered all the photos we took yesterday, and figured I would sit and write about our Thanksgiving yesterday.

We were invited to spend Thanksgiving with our friends, the Cleggs. So even though we missed our children and all of our family and friends in the US, we had a place to go and share our Thanksgiving. It was a really wonderful event and we are really thankful to the Clegg family for hosting the event.

After a morning where Michelle baked pies, a turkey, cookies, and rolls, we headed out the door. When we arrived, we saw some traditional Indian festive decorations.

Strings of flowers on the gates and a walk lined with fragrant flower petals.

Large decorative bowels with floating flower petals and candles.

But once you came through the front door, it looked (almost) all like a traditional American Thanksgiving. Friends hanging out in the kitchen, kids all over the place, conversation, food. It was a wonderful time! One thing that made it even better, the Clegg family had a caterer set up tables, bring (and wash) the dishes, decorate, bring flowers, provide the juice and clean up everything after it was all over. Laura Clegg said it was the best and easiest Thanksgiving ever! The cost on the caterer was about double the cost that we paid for our turkey. Caterer ~ $180, turkey ~$70.

Carving the $70 turkey!

Friends in the kitchen. From left to right, Teresa Osorio (good friend), Sister Ann Jackson (the Mission President's wife and good friend), Laura Clegg (good friend)

Almost all the kids - there were so many, I'm sure there are a bunch that aren't in the picture.

The tables and chairs that the caterers set up.

Yummy!

Why do we always take pictures of people eating? They really aren't very flattering.