A very thankful thanksgiving indeed

Thanksgiving 2012 was spent back in St. Etienne for a Franco-American style Thanksgiving.  Kathleen opened her doors to about 20 friends. Everyone brought something and we had a veritable feast.  Over all of this food we described various Thanksgiving traditions and I told my neighbor about my families alphabet game tradition so we grabbed a mug and some letters and passed it around the table.  I explained to everyone that they must tell the table what they are thankful for that begins with the letter they picked up.  Since we are a bilingual bunch the options for what you were thankful for was broadened considerably. We had thankful for You and thankful for Vous. We had someone thankful for Ewoks and another thankful for ma Famille Stephanoise and my personal favorite the Relationship between France and America.  It was a lot of fun and I think a good way to show those who were celebrating their first Thanksgiving that we do more than just eat a ton of food. Although, that is one of the greatest benefits of the holiday!

 I have been more aware of the presence of thanksgiving than ever before. I spent the two weeks prior teaching my children about the tradition and salivating over stuffing and pumpkin pie.  They all wanted to book flights to the states for black Friday and were really concerned about possible future plans to live in the states because they didn't want to go to a thanksgiving and gain weight. My thoughts on this concern, poor French people they don't know how to live! 

The rules of Thanksgiving according to Claire

I was warned before leaving about the dangers of being that crazy foreign language teacher, it's official I have definitely crossed that barrier. I watched my students eyes go from oh, she's so cute and excited about Thanksgiving to What on earth is she talking about?! It really happened between rule number 2 and 3 on my listing of 

The rules of Thanksgiving according to Claire

1. no salad, no fruit.
2. Never wear a belt or tight clothes.
3. 2 weeks before Thanksgiving begin the stomach expansion program.

4. No Christmas music/movies before Thanksgiving.

 In retrospect the stomach expansion program (where you gradually eat more at each meal in an attempt to create more room for the big day) might have been too intense of a topic to bring up with such structured eaters, they were appalled. By the end of class I think I had managed to convince them that most of what I was saying was a joke, and I mostly succeeded. However, being known as the crazy American is actually kind of fun, they are always saying you Americans are so excited about everything you're always smiling, which, of course, brings a smile to my face.