That's a big bird

On Saturday we survived celebrated our first Thanksgiving in Paris. First time without either of our families, first time with our French friends for their first Thanksgiving ever. Lots of firsts you can see. We rose early for a Saturday at 7:30am. There was A LOT to do and we weren't even cooking the bird.

In non-Thanksgiving news, we got a fancy Nespresso machine on Friday. Ever since I had a few cups with my friend Lorraine, I was hooked. Still figuring out how to make the perfect morning cup of coffee, but it is a major improvement from the crappy drip coffee we have been drinking for the last year.

The hubs ( I will refer to my husband as "hubs" from now on) went off to the marche to get the rest of the fixins' for the meal. He was determined to make creamed onions (barf) and I was determined to make brussel sprouts (yum). For the table setting, my inner Martha Stewart was on fire. I got crafty and painted little glass yogurt jars with everyone's name for the place settings. Hubs was a busy bee in the kitchen making his onions, stuffing, and mash potatoes. It quickly became clear that our kitchen could not hold all this Thanksgiving goodness. We had food all over the place. Stuffing? In Luke and Theo's room. Cranberry sauce? Living room, next to the stereo. Once hubs finished up, I had twenty minutes to make the hors d'oeuvres and a salad before our guests arrived, um scramble much? And of course they showed up right on time.

Ain't that purdy?

Made with my own two Martha hands.

Our French friends are fantastic. Very chill. They have two kids around the same age and everyone seems to get along great. Now that my French allows me to communicate more than spastically blurting out words like bien! oui! pourquoi pas! I don't feel like a total moron, I've upgraded to half moron status. If only they liked to drink large quantities of wine and champagne it would be a perfect match.

Hubs returned from the boucher with what looked like something the size of a small pterodactyl. I guess our pounds to kilos conversion was a taaaad bit off. We will be eating turkey until Christmas, but eh, I'd rather have too much turkey than too little. Turkey jerkey anyone?

I hope the buffet doesn't cave under the weight of that massive beast.

So we are finally sitting down to eat. They arrived at two and I think we started eating at four. Stomachs were grumbling. The kids are seated ready to dive in, and I offer them some milk to drink. *Record scratch*, silence...umm, non. Milk is for the morning only I learned. Otherwise water with lunch and dinner for kids. They were very gracious about it and everyone had a little milk and water, not together, gross. No biggie, but another interesting cultural difference.

Overall, I would give us a B+ for our first Thanksgiving in Paris. Great company, great food, next time we will have everything just a bit more pulled together, and more wine.