Saul and Chelsia: Over the Moon and Back: Accion de Gracias

I think Thanksgiving just might be my favorite holiday. It's like Christmas without the stress of presents and the financial strain that comes with them. There's something about eating copious amounts of traditional food while reflecting on what you're thankful for that makes it the perfect holiday.

This is the second Thanksgiving in a row that Saul and I have spent alone. Little Nugget is kicking away these days but you get my point. While I definitely miss spending the holiday with our families, I love that being away has allowed us to get comfortable in the kitchen. Not only comfortable but we actually really enjoy it. Saul actually said to me after we had finished preparing everything that cooking has become one of his favorite aspects of the holiday (it's true, I have husband that helps in the kitchen).

Last year in Samoa we had the Turkey Run (can't believe that was a year ago). We prepared our first Thanksgiving Feast without much trouble and everything turned out pretty flawlessly. This year we were confident in our ability. However, it's a bit more difficult to find typical Thanksgiving staples in Spain than it is in Samoa (weird, I know).

There's a little shop here called "Taste of America." Oh man did I feel lame going in there but we did try to use our newfound Spanish abilities to create the illusion that we're Madrilenos craving some good 'ol American Thanksgiving food. Wishful thinking. Anyways, we were able to find canned pumpkin and canned cranberry sauce albeit for four euros each! The tiniest container ever of McCormick's nutmeg cost eight euros so we passed on that and found it elsewhere. They had boxed stuffing but we were in an over-achieving type mood and decided to make it from scratch. Turkey is pretty much non-existent in grocery stores, though you are able to special order it from the butcher. Being the unemployed cheapos that we are we decided to opt for two whole chickens. No, we didn't make one for each of us (c'mon you know we share everything); we wanted leftovers.

Sooo we took the day off from school on Thursday. No way was I going to be sitting in Spanish class on my favorite holiday. We made the double layer pumpkin cheesecake and prepared the veggies for the stuffing on Wednesday night. On Thursday we started cooking pretty early and made: mac n'cheese, stuffing, two roast chickens, potato bread rolls, candied yams and gravy. Everything turned out amazing. We even managed to find a tablecloth and candles to set the table with. Along with our pumpkin cheesecake and cranberry sauce, our Thanksgiving Dinner was perfect. In true Madrileno form we didn't eat until 8:30pm or so (well, true Madrilenos would have eaten at 10 or 11 but 8:30 was late for us).

The day was absolutely perfect. This year I'm especially thankful for this little human inside my belly that has already brought so much happiness into mine and Saul's lives.

-C