First and foremost, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL! Sometimes I get so caught up in food and football that I forget the true meaning of Thanksgiving: being thankful for all we have in life. And thankful I am 🙂 Sometimes I pause for a second and I cannot believe this is really my life – what could I possibly have done to deserve a life as wonderful as this? So this post is dedicated to all those people I have met in my life that have influenced me, changed me, helped me and loved me.

Bringing Thanksgiving to Spain is NOT an easy task. There are some things we do that are so American, they just do not exist in Spain. Do you know how long it took to explain what sweet potatoes are? Or creamed corn? The struggle was REAL.

Luckily, Valencia has an American Store. One day we took an adventure (it’s always an adventure) to the American store in the center of the city.

The store, which was more like a pantry, has American “delicacies” such as Aunt Jemima’s (for a mere 8 euros) or Reese’s (1,50 euros) or even Froot Loops. It was crazy to see food that is dirt cheap in American be so expensive in Spain. At the store we bought creamed corn, stove top stuffing, cranberry sauce, pie crust, sour cream and some sketchy version of corn bread mix (which let’s be real – was not actually corn bread mix haha). Everything cost just under 60 euros (aka around $85…very affordable as you can tell :)).

Mara, Molly, Mom and me at the American Store

On the day of Thanksgiving, we started cooking at 10:30 in the morning. (Although I guess at this point I should mention that when I say “we,” I really mean Mom, Mara, Molly and Fatima. I decided I go on a 5 mile run instead…gotta work off those Thanksgiving calories.) First , they made the pumpkin pie and the corn pudding. I give them serious props for their ability to make these two dishes because they did some SERIOUS improvising. Instead of pumpkin pie mix out of a can, they had to used a real pumpkin (that was already cooked). For the corn pudding they used corn meal to make corn bread mix.

We also made sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, apple pie, cranberry sauce, and of course, TURKEY.

Shoutout to Mama Fiorio for doing an amazing job of carving the turkey. For her first thanksgiving without Dad in 30 years (cray cray) she successfully filled his shoes.

In Spain, and specifically at the house of Mara’s host family, the woman of the house does all the cooking. In this case, Fatima (Mara’s house mom) has done all the cooking for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So when it was our responsibility to do the cooking, it was quite difficult for her to let go. Obviously her cooking methods are different than ours and we had some difficulties reconciling those. However, in the end, everything worked out 🙂

Fatima did a wonderful job of decorating the table for Thanksgiving!

We had some discussion as to whether eating on the American flag was allowed…but we decided as long as we didn’t drop too much food on it, we were still honoring America. For good measures, we said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem (yes, this happened in all seriousness hahaha).

Fatima invited her brothers and sisters to join us for Thanksgiving, so there was a total of ten people at the table. Neither Fatima, nor any of her siblings, had ever experienced Thanksgiving. It was really neat to see their faces as they encountered the American holiday that we treasure so much. 🙂

Before eating we held hands, went around the circle and said (in Spanish) what we were thankful for. I am thankful for the ability to celebrate Thanksgiving in another country with a wonderful group of friends and family.

Once we put the food on the table , they could NOT get over that we put all of our food on the same plate and ate it all at the same time.

“But, how is it all going to fit on the plate?”

Well, that’s the point. It doesn’t fit which means you have to get seconds 🙂

By the way, all of the food turned out spectacular. Good job team.

They were surprised that we ate the corn pudding during dinner and not for dessert. To them, it was more like a cake of corn, not something that would be eaten during the actual meal. Of course, they LOVED the corn pudding and kept asking Mara for the recipe (Thanks Mimi!).

They really liked the pumpkin pie, but were surprised that we ate ice cream at the same time as the pie. I never realized how much Americans mix everything up at once.

Even though I missed the rest of my family, I am so blessed to be able to spend this holiday with my mom, sister and all of the friends Mara has made here in Spain. Cheers to another year full of love, happiness and GOOD FOOD. Obvi.