Thanksgiving for expats living in the US is a little different than what is considered traditional. In this post I’ll tell you all about how my Thanksgiving went this year!
The first thing that’s definitely different from most traditional Thanksgiving celebrations is that we have zero family living in the US with us. On the one hand it saves us a lot of travel. On the other hand we also never have guests to cook for. This makes for a pretty quiet Thanksgiving most of the time.
With that said, every year we always do a Dutch Thanksgiving celebration with all my dad’s coworkers! This year it will take place on December 7, and I’m really looking forward to eating even more Thanksgiving food!
Our original plan was to just have dinner like every other day. My mom wanted to make brussels sprouts with mashed potatoes and ox tail. To be completely honest… I don’t like any of those foods, oops.
It’s a good thing then that my good friend LeAn invited me over to her house super last minute. Not only was her entire family there, but she also had some friends over that I knew as well.
Upon arriving everyone was still super busy in the kitchen, and the entire house smelled like good food. They made basically every traditional Thanksgiving dish. We had mashed potatoes, gravy, mac and cheese, ham, green beans, and more! Of course we also had turkey. My personal favorite dish is always the green bean casserole! I definitely had two helpings of everything.
For dessert we had lots of different pies. LeAn’s best friend made teeny tiny pecan pies, and we also had a giant fruit tart. Fruit tarts are my favorite!
In LeAn’s family it is traditional to play card games after eating, and her entire family gathered around the table. Us non-players however decided we would rather start our Black Friday shopping spree a little early… I purchased eight books from Book Outlet during their 30% off sale! And I spent less than 40 dollars, which I think is amazing.
I didn’t stay too late, I did have to work the next day after all. Which, as a side note, I also survived. My first American Black Friday working in retail!! It was busy, but people were definitely really friendly and just trying to buy some books. I am extra thankful I don’t work at the big stores like Best Buy…
And that’s how my Turkey Day went! It was quiet and stressless, but definitely also a lot of fun since I got to spend it with good company!
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