The school the kids' go to is a German/American school and try to celebrate holidays from both countries. Most of the holidays are the same but Thanksgiving is uniquely American. The tradition in the school is that one of the American parents host a Thanksgiving lunch, during the school day, sometime in the week of Thanksgiving. The school has Thursday and Friday off for the holiday as well.
When we moved into this house and I saw that we had a winter garten and a dining room I knew we would have the space to have Benjamin, his teacher and his 23 other classmates over for lunch. What I didn't know was that our remodel would still be far from over but I stayed the course and figured we could make the space they would be in cozy enough... hopefully.
The week before the day of the class lunch Benjamin looked at me very seriously and said "really, mom? REALLY? You are having my entire class over HERE?" This place looks like a shit hole!" Haha. It did, he was right. At that time we still had all of our things (extra bed, unhung artwork, empty luggage, etc, etc,) in our dining room as there was nowhere else to
put it as they continued to work on the basement. BUT... then Marty and I rented the car and at least got the roof paper out of the yard and kind of straightened up the rest of the junk. The basement rec room was finally finished so we could put all of our stuff there until the rest of the rooms were finished to actually put it where it belongs. Part of the motivation in "reclaiming our house" came from Benjamin's "its a shit hole" comment. 😄😂
The tradition is that the hosting American parent also makes the turkey but the rest of the parents in the class bring everything else. It was my first time making a turkey and a few days before I had to bike to a special store - not necessarily a "special" store just a bigger one and
further away than I normally go. It had gotten dark during my ride there (because it starts getting dark here around 3:30 now!!) and it was raining. I really wasn't all that happy about it at the moment. But my first attempt at a turkey turned out great. I mean, it probably wasn't the most moist turkey but it was
well cooked, had good flavor and was perfectly seasoned. It really wasn't even that hard. I was surprised.
There were three other moms that came to help and Marty was on picture and Mogli duty. Thankfully, Mogli was still very worn out
from his "run with the wild boars" the day before and barely even got riled up when the kids showed up around noon. The class of 24 walked about one mile, through a park with
their one teacher. No permission slips were required. No parents complained. This would never happen in the states!!
They showed up and piled their coats and shoes in the mudroom and plopped on the comfy couch. Their very
kind teacher, Mr. Olson, led the class in a thankful activity where each student had made a leaf previously and then each student got up and in front of the class said what they were thankful for and then taped the leaf to the wall. I think I was supposed to have a tree cut out on the wall... oops!
The kids ate and drank and laughed and then after the meal went out and ran around in the yard. I had been a bit nervous leading up to it as I had never made a turkey on my own before and organizing and dishing out food for 25 was a bit overwhelming but it all went off without a hitch. So well in fact that I would volunteer to host it next year.
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