Christmas in the Park stage
Tree just after it was lit
Christmas in the Park stage
Santa in a canoe
Thanksgiving dinner minus the turkey (chicken, yummy yams, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, mushroom stuffing, cranberry sauce)
On Thursday, Thanksgiving came and went in New Zealand with the impact of a soft whisper. It was very hard to get into the spirit of Thanksgiving since it is not celebrated here and the fact that it is the start of summer. This made Jocelyn miss America a lot since Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday. A few people at Jocelyn’s work tried to cheer her up with the occasional “God Bless America” and “gobble gobble” as well as a few people that hummed the Star Spangled Banner although we had no clue what this has to do with Thanksgiving. To get into the spirit we decided to spend all day Saturday cooking and have a full Thanksgiving meal. We made a large assortment of side dishes, including mashed potatoes with chives, cranberry sauce, mushroom stuffing, green bean casserole (with homemade french fried onions since there were none to purchase), and Enid’s yummy yams. For the main course we had to improvise since it is impossible to find turkey this time of the year in New Zealand so Jocelyn had a roast chicken and I had cod. And of course pumpkin pie for dessert made with Libby’s canned pumpkin shipped all the way from the USA from the Fary's. We started cooking around 10:30 am and finished a little after 4pm. Cooking so many dishes takes a much longer time when you have a mini-oven that can only fit one large or two small dishes at a time. We both ate until we were full and sleepy. Now it feels like Thanksgiving! And of course as Thanksgiving dinner officially kicks off the Christmas season we went to Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park tonight. This is a big event in Christchurch with an assortment of bands playing, ending with a big fireworks display. There were about 100,000 people which is about a third of the population of Christchurch. Getting there was easy since the park is pretty much across the street from are place. It was a fun show but it was odd that Santa arrived in a canoe with rowers instead of reindeer. Ahhhh.....island cultures....... :)
