An American Academy Thanksgiving

Growing up, I never particularly loved Thanksgiving.  This seems crazy to me in retrospect, but perhaps it makes a bit more sense when you consider that:

1) As a child I wasn't very fond of turkey or orange vegetables (sweet potatoes, pumpkin, squash...);
2) I didn't discover my love of football until my early 20s;
3) There is no "Thanksgiving Turkey" who hides candy filled pumpkins around the house or flies
     down the chimney and leaves presents in stockings; and
4) My family always made a much bigger deal out of Christmas than Thanksgiving.

Chalkboard Art by our Sous Chef 

Of course, now that I am older and wiser, I absolutely adore every single thing about Thanksgiving.  I love that it's a distinctly American holiday, and that most families have very similar traditions and ways of celebrating.  I love the focus on eating and the fact that so many of the foods are special items that I generally only eat once a year (like stuffing and pumpkin pie). Most importantly, though, I love that Thanksgiving is still one of the few holidays that's not completely commercialized, and that the focus is about reflecting on all of the good in our lives and spending time with loved ones.  If we celebrated Thanksgiving at least once a month (instead of only once a year), I think we'd all be much happier people (well, maybe everyone except the person who normally gets stuck with the dishes...).

Thanksgiving obviously isn't an Italian holiday (although the Italians I know say they are familiar with the concept of Thanksgiving from watching American movies), but since this is the "American Academy," it's still a very well-celebrated holiday in our part of town.

Academy Dining Room

Things got underway around 12:30 with cocktails in the salon.  We were also treated to an amazing musical performances by a couple of the fellows. Then, at 1:30, everyone proceeded into the dining room for the Thanksgiving Feast.  At any given meal the dining room is usually only about half full, but on Thanksgiving it was jam-packed. There wasn't an open seat in the house!  The room and tables were beautifully decorated with leaves and gourds from the Academy gardens.  As always, the food was to die for.  We had all the Thanksgiving staples: turkey (pumpkin souffle for vegetarians like me), stuffing, mashed potatoes, root vegetables, rolls, cranberry sauce, and two pieces of pie each for dessert (apple and pumpkin with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream)!  When the cooks and kitchen interns came out to the dining room, they received an incredibly well-deserved standing ovation.  We had a wonderful time chatting and stuffing ourselves silly with the other fellows, and when we left we all swore we would never eat again....

Full Dining Room

Decorations

My (half-eaten) Vegetarian Plate

Dessert!!

Tom Batting

During the afternoon, most people stuck around and spent some time together. Apparently, one of the Academy traditions is to have a whiffle ball game out in the courtyard.  The Academy Director is quite the pitcher (he must have played some serious baseball earlier in life), and most of the adults and kids took turns batting. Sadly, I learned long ago that my lack of depth perception makes it nearly impossible for me to hit a moving ball, but I still enjoyed spectating.  It was especially fun to watch how excited the kids got when they got a hit (there are some incredibly awesome 4 year old athletes here this year).

Evening Potluck

Then, around 7 (which was a bit too soon if you ask me), we all managed to eat yet again at our second potluck dinner.  This time, any fellow who wanted to could contribute a dish (I made my famous apple/cranberry stuffing), and we all hung out together in the community kitchen.  This informal meal felt a lot more like the fun low-key Thanksgivings I celebrated out in Berkeley during law school (or with Tom's grad school friends), and we had a really good time.  I invited a St. Olaf classmate to this potluck (who I randomly ran into on the streets of Rome) and it was a lot of fun catching up with her as well.

Finally, we capped off the night with the traditional Thanksgiving hatchet throw... or, at least, it's a tradition in our friend Alex's family!  Basically, you set up a few pumpkins in the yard and then take turns (very carefully) throwing a hatchet at them from about 20-30 (or so) feet away.  In the end, our friend Liam was the big winner, and he celebrated his victory by holding the slaughtered pumpkin over his head and drinking its juice.  Maybe you had to be there, but you'll have to trust me that it was hilarious.  Perhaps we'll have to take this tradition back home with us next year....

In our Thanksgiving Finest (note Tom's new outfit!)

At the end of the day we were overly-tired and overly-full, but very, very thankful and happy. Although we were sad to spend the holiday away from our families, Tom and I really couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving celebration.  Not only did we get to enjoy two separate amazing meals, but we enjoyed a fun-filled day with our new Academy family!  Of course, we'd never be where we are today without the love and support of our friends and family back home, and we miss you all dearly! We hope you all had equally wonderful Thanksgivings, and we look forward to hopefully seeing you all again soon.

Alla Prossima,
Erin  

----------
Sat. Nov. 24:  I have officially stopped trusting any sort of weather forecast here.  They always call for rain, and it hardly ever happens!  It was supposed to have been rainy this week, but instead it's been sunny/party cloudy with highs in the low 60s and lows in the mid 40s (perfect running weather!)