Englishgirl goes Stateside...: My 1st Thanksgiving!!

So I got to celebrate my 1st Thanksgiving and it was lovely. I was so chuffed to be invited to spend it with Carrie boyfriend Nick's family, who live about 30 mins from downtown Chicago in a place called La Grainge ( A Chicago Suburb)

To give you a little background Thanksgiving Day is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November and has been an annual tradition in the US since 1863, when during the Civil War, President Ab Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated. It is created to give thanks to God for helping the Pilgrims if the Plymouth Colony survive their first brutal winter in New England. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days.

The morning of Thanksgiving I got up to check emails and try and get through work before heading over to Nicks in the afternoon when I suddenly heard a loud banging! I couldn't for the life of me work out what it was until I looked down State Street and saw a parade. I was so excited I grabbed my coat and ran outside!

It really felt like Christmas. The day before, people were winding down and leaving around lunchtime (just like Christmas Eve) all the lights and Christmas decorations were up and after the parade the streets were practically empty! I felt all festive and dreamy!!

We headed over to Nicks in the afternoon and again it felt like Christmas day. His mum was in the kitchen cooking away, the table was all set and every sat round chatting and watching telly whilst the rest of the family arrived.

When we did eventually sit down to eat (me and Carrie were close to eating our hands we were so hungry!) it was more food than I have seen for a while. We had lots of different courses some of which inspired by the Polish side of the family.

Round 1
Chili cheese dip and chips, coleslaw and freshly baked bread

Round 2

Crusted fillet of Veal
Round 3

Pierogi - sweet cheese, Cheddar cheese, horseradish
Kapusta - pickled cabbage

Round 4

Turkey
Stuffing
Corn
Mash Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Cranberries and Gravy

Round 5

Banana cream pastry

Some of the gorgeous desserts!
Notice the English influence bottom right - mince pies donated by moi!!

Round 6

Champagne
Deserts of all kinds; cupcakes, pumpkin/apple pies, creme brulee

Food comas all around as you can imagine. When we got to Round 6 I could not physically fit anything - drink included into my belly!

Uncle Tom reading out some of the answers!

We also had a great laugh playing the dictionary game (one of which I am introducing to my family this Christmas). The leader of the game goes through the monster dictionary and picks crazy words and their meanings. The players then get given a piece of paper to write a silly explanation for what they think it might be (you want the other players to pick your answer). The leader then reads all of them out including the correct one. The players have to pick what they think is the right answer. If you get the answer right you get 2 points and you get a point for every person who thought it was your answer....it was hilarious!