Thanksgiving aka turkey day

Delicious pumpkin and corn bread to be had at this stall

Frying lots of meat - but have to say was a little jelaous of the warmth they must have felt from the bbq

Just like every time Mary serves food, there was lots of demand - 2200 meals were prepared

Volunteers from everywhere in and around the city, all freezing but happy

I heard something of around 200 birds having been served in all shapes and forms...

The Thanksgiving event is by far the largest that YesSolutions organizes and they must be preparing for weeks if not months in advance. People from everywhere chip in and it's fascinating to me how there is a constant stream of volunteers coming and going both in the preparations and during the day of actually serving the food. It was particularly cold this year though and even the generators stopped working at some point. My feet and hands were so cold that I could barely feel them anymore after having poured hot water into cups with tea bags or hot chocolate for about 1.5 hours. We prepared the people who were waiting in line to be served hot drinks as it was freezing. They were very appreciative but the one thing that really stuck with me was that most of them were not complaining about the cold. Instead they were just patiently waiting - and of course it occurred to me that in contrast to me and some of the other people used to sitting in offices, they were used to the cold, many of them living on the streets or on and off different shelters. One French speaking woman who had a blast with me, eating the yummy pumpkin bread, told me that she really wanted to have some of the flower decoration from the tables and when we replied that this was decoration for everyone, she asked until when we were there and advised that she could wait to take the flowers in the evening then. A whole different concept of time that she was used to. Still, I was so cold after not even 2 hours out there and had a feeling of recovering from the freezing temperatures all the way on the train ride upstate. 

My flatmate's family lives up in Westchester and they were kind enough to share their Thanksgiving celebration with me, a fairly big deal as I have heard from many Americans that Thanksgiving really is their only real, national holiday, since not everyone celebrates Christmas. That's why everyone travels and tries to spend time with the family at this time. This year, we were actually witnessing a very unusual phenomenon - it was a fairly late Thanksgiving (end of Nov, almost December) and it fell on the first day of Channukah, the Jewish festival of the lights. So my flatmate's family also started the lighting of the candles on their menorah and the two kids received their first out of 8 presents for Channukah. Pretty sweet deal , when you think about it... Apparently kids didn't use to receive gifts but comparing this holiday to Christmas, it became more and more commercialized as well. A little surprising to me since Channukah is by no means the most important jewish holiday...

Anyway, Thanksgiving with the family was very nicely done and everyone was very welcoming and open - there was massive amounts of food. Starting with crackers and cheese and potato pancakes and apple sauce (used to be my favorite dish), followed by a butternut squash soup which was delicious (and I was pretty much full by that time) and the main course consisted of the turkey, accompanied by green beans, brussels sprouts with pecan nuts, sweet potatoes with marshmallows (sounds weird but is to die for..), a great stuffing, cranberry sauce and I'm sure there was even more on the table that I can't recall right now. We kept stuffing ourselves, drinking wine and I heard some fun stories about different members of the family. And just when I thought I could never eat again, there was dessert. Lots of different cakes and pies including my all time favourite: apple pie with vanilla ice cream. I believe someone mentioned that a typical Thanksgiving meal has around 4500 calories which could easily be enough food for three days instead of just one meal... But what the heck - it's a holiday, right?

Football also plays a big role in the Thanksgiving celebration and most families watch some of the games together. I really should start following since the Super Bowl is coming up in New Jersey at the end of January and at this point I didn't even know which teams might potentially be in it.

It was funny on my train ride back into the city I only saw kids who clearly spent the evening with their respective families but were glad to return from the suburbs (where they presumably grew up) into their beloved city. Interestingly enough my flatmate's kids are not super thrilled about Roosevelt Island - might have to do with them having grown up here as one of them mentioned to me...