A Very Special Thanksgiving!

As many of you know, I teach English to a few groups of Japanese women offbase. This has been one of my favorite things about being over here. I get to teach them English, but each time I learn so much about the Japanese people and culture. It has been such a positive experience. One of my groups, 7 women in all, have been so much fun to teach- I think it is the mixture of their personalities, but nonetheless, they always make me laugh. Some of the women in the group have been getting together to learn English for over 10 years.

I decided I wanted to have them over to my house for a traditional Thanksgiving feast. Getting Japanese nationals on the base is a little time consuming. I had to get all of their information (birthday, height, weight, driver's license number, etc.) and take it to the pass and id office. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

I had so much fun preparing for this meal. I wanted it to be perfect because none of them had ever experienced a true Thanksgiving meal. I do love to enterain, so this was a great excuse to decorate and set the perfect Thanksgiving table. I went as far as preparing menus, placecards, and chocolate truffles for each of them to take home.

On Thursday, November 20th, I met my seven students outside of the main gate, and surprisingly, all of their passes were waiting for them, and I got them on with no problems. We got to my house at about 10:30 am and had the best time talking about the different traditional foods. I served them some appetizers, their favorite being creme cheese with a sweet and hot pepper and onion relish poured over it. They loved this. We had sparkling apple cranberry cider, which the just raved about.

For the meal, I served all of the traditional foods- turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, rolls, apple cranberry stuffing, and of course, homemade pumpkin pie. Their favorites were the sweet potato casserole and the stuffing. I did have to get very cheesy during the meal, and I had everyone at the table share something they were thankful for. We had fun because most of them ended up telling stories, which was great for practicing their English.

After we ate, we sat around the living room and talked about the history of Thanksgiving. I had the best time sharing one of our biggest holidays with these ladies.