Thanksgiving Weekend

For our first Thanksgiving in Japan, we had a fabulous weekend. Kan had planned to take a half day off Friday and while we were shopping at Costco, he got called back into work. Boo. But him going into the office for a 8PM meeting on Friday helped me to get some cooking done for our Saturday meal. If he had been home, I would have been tempted to be lazy and lay on the couch and watch a movie. So, the cooking for me started Friday night. I made sweet potato casserole and this fabulous apple/cranberry dish that is served warm. On Saturday I got up and made pancakes for breakfast - this served a dual purpose as I was supposed to take pancakes to a church luncheon on Sunday! Then more cooking for our Thanksgiving feast. I made mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese casserole, green bean casserole and the turkey on Saturday. Our friends from California joined us and she made the stuffing. We had a huge spread and I must admit, I was quite proud of myself. We are always at one of our families for Thanksgiving and I never usually cook. I just help with a side dish or two and bring some pies along, usually Derby pies. So I was a bit nervous about how all of this would turn out, especially the turkey. But it was delicious and the best part is we are still eating on it. I think I can get one more dinner out of it and then we can nibble on the leftovers for lunch or snacks. We did have pumpkin pie as well, but it came from Costco! I told Kan I felt like an official mom/house wife doing the entire Thanksgiving meal. An added bonus to our day was watching football games from Thursday that we had DVRed and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

Sunday we were both pretty worn out - me from cooking and Kan from staying up all night to watch the UK/UT football game. I won't mention anything more about that. However, I had a women's Thanksgiving brunch to attend for church so Kan got to keep Miyako for the afternoon and bring her to church. The brunch was a huge success. The food was fabulous and we had about 20 women there. We were really pleased. It was very laid back. We shared a meal together and then made a craft sharing what we are thankful for.

Sunday night after dinner we put our Christmas decorations up. We have a small tree and people from back home made us some homemade ornaments to adorn our tree. We also have a Little People nativity set we put out. We are waiting until Christmas morning to bring out baby Jesus (Thanks Kim for the idea). Our wall in the living room has these hooks that are supposed to be used for pictures. Since we only have one piece of artwork in our apartment, the remaining hooks have our stockings hanging from them with care. At first I thought I would be disappointed not having a big tree, outside lights, or a whole house full of decorations. But I must say, our little tree makes our apartment very cozy. And, I only had to get on a step stool to get the decorations down rather than climbing a ladder into the attic. On top of that, it only took us about 20 minutes to put everything out. Clean up will be a piece of cake! These are some of the positive things in downsizing! It is all a matter of perspective isn't it?

Enjoy the pics of our Thanksgiving weekend. And let the holidays begin!