It is hard to beat Thanksgiving in the States. A day off from work spent with family eating the same wonderful food you eat every Thanksgiving followed by some football on TV and then three more days off while kicking off the holiday season. Can't get much better than that.
So, we had much lower expectations for Thanksgiving this year. We knew the kids would be in school and that I'd be working and we questioned whether we'd be able to find a traditional dinner.
As it turned out, we had a wonderful time.
After school was out on Thanksgiving Day, we grabbed the three fantastic desserts that Erin spent the day making and jumped in a taxi (a very rare occasion for us) to head over to our friends David and Christina's apartment. We were joined there by their family and another family from our school.
While the seven kids entertained each other (and were entertained by a movie), the grown-ups had a great time. We enjoyed appetizers with a French flair, a non-traditional but very delicious main course, a surprisingly enjoyable -- and very French -- cheese course, then Erin's excellent desserts. Throw in copious amounts of wine and good friends and we had a recipe for a very fun Thanksgiving evening.
Two nights later, the four of us concluded our Thanksgiving festivities with a traditional dinner hosted by the American Church in Paris. There they served about 150 people for a dinner that included all of our favorite Thanksgiving dishes -- turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. We were seated at a table with, surprisingly, a French family and we enjoyed visiting with them.
One of the interesting parts of the dinner at the American Church in Paris was the reading of President Obama's Thanksgiving Proclamation. The proclamation included the following:
So, we had much lower expectations for Thanksgiving this year. We knew the kids would be in school and that I'd be working and we questioned whether we'd be able to find a traditional dinner.
As it turned out, we had a wonderful time.
After school was out on Thanksgiving Day, we grabbed the three fantastic desserts that Erin spent the day making and jumped in a taxi (a very rare occasion for us) to head over to our friends David and Christina's apartment. We were joined there by their family and another family from our school.
While the seven kids entertained each other (and were entertained by a movie), the grown-ups had a great time. We enjoyed appetizers with a French flair, a non-traditional but very delicious main course, a surprisingly enjoyable -- and very French -- cheese course, then Erin's excellent desserts. Throw in copious amounts of wine and good friends and we had a recipe for a very fun Thanksgiving evening.
Two nights later, the four of us concluded our Thanksgiving festivities with a traditional dinner hosted by the American Church in Paris. There they served about 150 people for a dinner that included all of our favorite Thanksgiving dishes -- turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. We were seated at a table with, surprisingly, a French family and we enjoyed visiting with them.
One of the interesting parts of the dinner at the American Church in Paris was the reading of President Obama's Thanksgiving Proclamation. The proclamation included the following:
I encourage the people of the United States to join together -- whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors -- and give thanks for all we have received in the past year, express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and share our bounty with others.As we sat in that church hall, with a mix of Americans, other expats, and locals, living out an amazing opportunity in an amazing city and meeting a whole host of new friends, that statement really resonated with me. We do have a lot to be thankful for and I can add the experience of Thanksgiving in Paris to that list.
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