Thanksgiving – Just another Thursday in France

There’s something very wrong with attending classes on Thanksgiving. I have 20 years of Thanksgiving breeding in me telling me to –

1.     1. Sleep in

2.     2. Watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in my pj’s

3.    3.  Help bake some pies

4.     4. Hang out with my family

5.    5. Eat WAY too much

6.   6.   Sit for hours after eating said food while hanging with all the family that’s over

7.   7. Watch some football…and I’m not talking soccer

8.   8.   And wake up the next morning and eat leftovers

While I’m not having the traditional Thanksgiving today, I did come as close as I was going to get in France last night. Hier soir (last night), my Marchutz professor Alan invited everyone over for Thanksgiving dinner. He and Cathleen opened their home up to us students and lots of other friends and family. It was a very festive atmosphere and I was so thankful to be spending my Thanksgiving meal in the home of a beloved professor with my friends here who’ve become family. Four of Alan’s children were in attendance & three of their friends, my professor John and his wife and daughter, Margaux (from the IAU campus) & her friend, a professor from UVA (shout out to Momma House!) and her adorable little four-year-old daughter Sophie, the ten Marchutz students and one of our mom’s from the States…I think that’s everyone - What a crew!

The students were responsible for providing bread, desserts (which we ate in studio for breakfast because we had so many!), veggies (les haricots verts – green beans, yummm), and four people to come to the house early to help prepare. I brought 4 baguettes which were still warm from the oven when I picked them up, some meringue cookies & a framboise (raspberry) tart. There was SO much food! We spend time socializing before dinner and enjoying John’s choice of wines. We played with the two little kids, Alan’s small son James is one of the most adorable kids I’ve ever seen. We played with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains for a little while and everyone we played with the one named James he’d say, “That’s me!” or “C’est moi!” because, yes, he speaks both French and English.

Speaking of languages – my Thanksgiving dinner evening was spent speaking both languages because many in attendance were French. It was very exciting to be having such a culturally rich night. Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday to share with new people because it gives you the opportunity to explain what Thanksgiving is all about – coming together and being grateful for the people who are in your life. At one point in the night all 10 Marchutz kids were sitting together and we tried to give a toast that would sum up our experience so far, and that ended up turning into a long conversation about how appreciative we are that every single one of us is here this semester because we truly function as a whole and need all ten of us around in order to be well-balanced and functioning at our best. We’ve grown so close and our toast wound up being a tribute to us, our professors and art. While talking more than a few of us started tearing up because we’re so happy and thankful to be together. What a purely beautiful moment. That and Phil Collin’s “You’ll Be in my Heart” came over the stereo system during this conversation and it was so appropriate that we were touched!

Dinner was a gigantic turkey, stuffing (YES!), mashed potatoes (but nobody’s mashed potatoes could ever compare to my Mom’s!), green beans, Cesar salad, cranberry sauce (which we decided the French don’t have a word for cranberry…weird right?), bread and lots of desserts (chocolate cake, tarts, pies and chocolate!). True art students that we are we jokingly arranged our plates, aka palettes, according to color…hahah.  I sat across from Alan’s one daughter who attends Drexel in Philadelphia and we exchanged numbers and are planning on getting together when I’m back in the good ol’ US of A.  Hopefully I can practice my French with her, sweet!

After dinner we helped with the cleanup and then were entertained for a long time by Alan’s youngest, James, and his bubble blowing. He would blow the bubbles, look at us, pop the bubbles, look at us, giggle, and then look at us for our responses…which of course involved us giggling too! It was one of the cutest things I’ve seen here. Thanksgiving dinner at Alan and Cathleen’s beautiful home surrounded by the people I love most in France (minus Mamie of course) was perfect. The entire evening was one tender moment after another and I don’t think I ever stopped smiling.

 

Mamie and I are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend together by making a homemade apple pie. I have high hopes, but we’ll see what happens when the ingredients meet Mamie’s cookware…and hopefully I did all my conversions from American measurements to French correctly. If not I’m sure we’ll end up with a delicious applely, sugary mess which will still taste delicious with vanilla ice cream!

Today, Thanksgiving, I had classes and it was brutal. I was kind of tired from the night before since walking home from Alan’s took over 30 minutes because we live on separate sides of town (luckily my good friend Nick walked me all the way home! Funny story, after he was out of earshot my upstairs neighbor greeted me with “Bon soir!” and then preceded to ask me is this “garcon” was bothering me and that he’d take care of him if we were, hahaha. I had to respond with, “Non! Il est mon ami!” No he’s my friend! Oh I love my neighbors here.). We didn’t leave their house until late, but it was worth being a little tired this morning. Especially when Alan rolled up with all the extra desserts for us to eat for breakfast – perfect! So it kind of was similar to a Thanksgiving at home…I still had leftovers, sweet.

I was very tempted to skip my very first class here today. I’m a little sick and wasn’t feeling like walking into town. But Mom (my wonderful, sweet loving Mom!) sent me a package recently and I had an inkling it would arrive the one day I didn’t walk to town to check. And it was here! Thanks Mom, you made my Thanksgiving very special from a country away!!! I don’t think I stopped grinning the rest of the day, “Yea that’s right IAU kids, my Mom loves me the most!” Okay, it’s not really like that, but when you get a package here it’s a big deal…and I love being that kid! So once I was in town there’s no point in not attending class (duhhh) so I went and our professor let us out 10 minutes early – Happy Thanksgiving students! So that was awesome. All in all it has been a very good past 24+ hours of celebrating Thanksgiving.

Only two more weeks of class and one week of finals after tomorrow, can you believe it? I can’t. But I’ll be very glad to be back in the States. Even by the end of the semester in Gettysburg I’m ready to come home, and now especially because I miss spending holidays with my family. Good thing Christmas is only 5 days after I get home!! I hope everyone’s gifts fit in my suitcase…

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And remember to be thankful for all those you love and who love you. I know I’m thankful that you read my blog! It makes me feel appreciated and loved and I cannot wait to get home to hug each and every one of you.

Gobble, gobble!