Belated Holiday Cheer

I realize I have been pretty pitiful in updating the past week--but my Internet was down. What can you do? Now, is better. So I write.

Well, another Thanksgiving has come and gone without my family. It gets easier every year to be abroad when one is supposed to be home, but I still hate it. But it's either Thanksgiving or Christmas, and, well, the food's basically the same, and Christmas has presents, hence....Thanksgiving is relegated to second place.

I had over a bunch of people for Thanksgiving dinner--two of whom were actually American. I must say, for my first attempt at actually preparing Thanksgiving dinner, I did a damn good job. I've never made stuffing--or even mashed potatoes--but they turned out pretty good. Never mind that I bought already roasted chicken. (I hear there's turkey somewhere in Jerusalem, but come on, it was a schoolday...) And there was no pumpkin pie. So we improvised (brownies and ice cream). But the point is: it was Thanksgiving. Matt told his rather odd version of the Thanksgiving story (including scalpings...what?!) for the foreigners, and I repeatedly had to remind everybody that the pilgrims did not kill the Indians after the feast. In fact, the pilgrims never killed the Indians. That, of course, was some other colony of white people. Anyway, the dinner was great fun. Plus my family called from their own table in the Pocono Mountains, and it was (almost) like being there, only not as tasty.