What is my *favorite* meal of the year?
Thanksgiving!
Do you think that not being in the US for the yearly turkey day means that I miss out on this tradition?
HELL NO.
Adam is blessed with leave and not being on probation with a new job, so he gets to go back stateside to celebrate this amazing meal with family, but I was not going to miss out! We have an amazing and incredible group of friends here, most of whom are American, who are just as obsessed with this tradition as I am. We opted to host a feast in our place, potluck style, and it definitely did not fail in being absolutely exceptional!
Adam and I took care of the turkey, which ended up having to be ordered from a hotel restaurant because we had 20+ people and a tiny oven that would not hold a large enough bird. Can I tell you how much this is the way to go? To not have to worry about finding a turkey to buy here (it is an issue), defrosting, brining, cooking perfectly, etc... They cooked our turkey the morning of our feast and we just had to pick it up. The rest of the main course dishes and dessert came from everyone, who was tasked with sharing a favorite dish/dessert and libation.
Fortunately, there are 4 apartments of us living here at the Rosewood, so we borrowed tables and chairs from everyone, to provide more than enough seating for everyone.
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| Debbie, making the stuffing |
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| Cheers Nate, Adam, and Dave |
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| Time to get this feast going! |
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| Tasty time! |
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| Partial spread, after the first round |
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| Other part of the spread |
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| The rest of the spread |
After filling ourselves with delicious food and cracking in on the dessert, everyone took to the couches to let to food coma settle in with some pleasant camaraderie.
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| Alison and Allison, my life is full of them! |
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| Michael enjoying the post-feast drink |
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| Carmen, Chris, and Nate warming up for the next round |
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| Kurt, Dave, Debbie, and Sara perfecting the lounge techinique |
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| Late meal stragglers |
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| Micah and Elena breaking into their delicious dessert spread! |
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| So many incredible dessert options! |
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| Micah's insanely good chocolate pumpkin break (thanks to his grandmother's recipe!) |
After letting the food settle for a bit, we broke into a hybrid of Cards Against Humanity. You should have known this was coming, it is my favorite game. Well, Allison came up with the brilliant idea of combining Cards Against Humanity with Pictionary, so we tried it out.
IT.IS.AWESOME.
We did girls versus boys and it was fantastic. If you want to take CAH to a whole new level, I highly recommend this! You just need some markers and large pieces of paper, a good time it promised to be had!
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| Carmen and Adam, let the games begin! |
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| Girls vs. Boys |
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| Working hard |
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| Alison and me, having such a nice time |
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| The girls = WINNERS! |
As you can see, this lasted a long time, as the sun fell out of the sky.
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| Chris and Debbie |
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| Me, Chris, and Lyde |
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| Adam and Dave, conspiring |
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| Allison and James (miss you Amy!!!) |
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| Allison not believing the boys |
People hung around long enough that there was dinner and dessert Round #2 for some.
I constantly feel blessed that we have built such an incredible group of friends here, it makes all the difference in the world with loving where you are at in the world.
Thank you to our friends for joining us and making this such a successfully awesome time! It has already been decided that this will be an Annual Mayer Event! Until next year!!!!
