Thanksgiving Rewind (LT version)

[SN: If you didn't figure it out, there's also a US version that I posted first]

A few weeks back, while complaining, agonizing, discussing how we were gonna miss Thanksgiving at home, Courtnay and I decided that we wanted to throw a “Canadian/American Thanksgiving party” here to make us feel more at home. Apparently those weird Canadians actually celebrate Thanksgiving on the 2^nd Monday in October, but Courtnay was willing to make our celebration closer to the US one. Since we usually have Sundays off we made plans to have it the Sunday following Thanksgiving. We would have liked to obviously have the whole team over, but with small apartments and limited cooking skills, we decided to just invite a few of the girls we’re closest to, Giedre, Marina and Lina (even though Lina had to bail on us last minute). After inviting the girls and explaining what the night would entail- basically lots of eating- Courtnay and I got to major planning. And as we all know, my motto for holidays (and life) is go big or go home so you best believe we did it up right! We ended up getting a whole formal seating arrangement of a card table, chairs, table cloth etc.  and after consulting some family members, came up with a menu of the following:

-appetizers of deviled eggs, nuts and cashews, and cheese and crackers (which btw apparently Lithuanians don’t do appetizers- we never see them on any menus at restaurants and it was a strange concept for the girls to eat the food before the actual meal was ready);

- twice baked potatoes

-rolls

-green bean casserole

-corn

-a carrot dish

-cranberry sauce

- TURKEY (obvi)

-and some famous Jean Kemezys recipe (the Betty Crocker box mix) brownies for dessert

The party was planned to be at Courtnay’s since she has the bigger apartment but since her oven went out the day before, most of the cooking was done at my place and then transported over. The oven malfunction ended up not being a big deal, but I have to admit that 2 people cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner for 5 is pretty stressful! I definitely have a new found respect for all of my aunts who cook all our big holiday meals! :) I gotta say that my twice baked potatoes were no where near that of Aunt Cheryl’s and my green bean casserole can’t compare to my Mom’s, but most of the food turned out pretty good (well, except for the cranberries that didn’t quit make the cut…).

It was pretty funny seeing Giedre and Marina get so excited to try all the different food, lifting all the foil off stuff and asking what it was. We finally filled our plates, sat down to eat and I continued holiday tradition with having us join hands as I led us in a traditional Thanksgiving-style prayer, thanking God for all his blessings and the “family” that He has provided us to share our meal with. :) Besides having to re-heat a few things, the food was all well-received and since then no one has gotten sick of food poisoning. A.k.a it was a success! After clearing the plates we busted out some cards and that’s when the real madness began. We showed the girls how to play the game SPOONS, and let’s just say that they LOVED IT! I’ve been in some pretty heated games of SPOONS in my day with my fam and the SLU girls, but this was definitely a contender for the most intense SPOONS group I’ve been a part of. Every hand we were all literally on the edge of our seats waiting to grab a spoon and as soon as one was taken mass chaos broke out that usually included screaming at the top of our lungs. Although this video gets a PG-13 rating (sorry Mom), it at least gives you an idea of how exciting things got…

So all in all, it was a pretty solid evening. Good food, great friends and fun times- definitely says the holidays to me! :)

Pics from the day/night...

Started cooking bright and early!

Lovely table setting

Giedre ready to chow down!

It took 5 stores to scrounge up 4 Buds but we did it! Had to have American beer at Thanksgiving! (And yes, my Juicy Peanut coolie made it to Lithuania with me!!)

Digging in!!

Lithuanian family Thanksgiving :)