Noviembre: We Put Birds on Things

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the WHOLE year. A day for the whole nation to celebrate being thankful? Yes, please! Along with fabulous, hypo-allergenic food. And crisp weather with the leaves changing color. And add scarves and Charlie Brown and things that taste like pumpkin. Perfect. 
Thus, I was a little disheartened at the idea of NOT celebrating this year. Thanksgiving is a holiday of the United States of America. (Though, I heard it is also celebrated in Canada. Fact?) 
BUT! My heart had nothing to fear. For the sake of extending thankfulness this season (and certainly for educational purposes, too : )), my community here celebrated ALL DAY LONG.
Here's what happend:

1. I had my English class re-enact the history of Thanksgiving. (This was complete with pilgrims in an imaginary boat and a Native American head-dress made of colored-paper.) Then they wrote thank you notes to important people in their lives. I was so excited about their writing abilities! (This actually happened on the Wednesday prior, as we don't have English class on Thursdays.)

2. Thursday lunch. A traditional Thanksgiving at the Overcasts! (They are the directors of NOE.) All the other "gringos" were there (of which we totaled four), along with other guests. There was turkey and cranberries and potatoes and sweet potatoes and rolls and pumpkin and sparkling cider and all of it! (Contented sigh.)

photo credit: Brian Luis Overcast

3. I help in the tutoring class on Thursday afternoons. They asked me to explain Thanksgiving to them, but in Spanish. I made my best attempt and drew turkeys on the pizarron (whiteboard). : )

4. In English-conversation class that night we celebrated "Charlie Brown" style. This meant with toast! Thank you, Snoopy! (If you haven't watched "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving", it's on Youtube.) They really enjoyed it, and we each shared what we were thankful for.

Samy is a beautician. She painted her nails like this : ).
(And she took the photo.)

I was the one who wrote "legs"
photo credit: Samy

5. After all our classes were finished (around 8:30pm), a large group of friends walked up the street to Kristen's house, were we proceeded to celebrate again! We had a turkey and potatoes and cranberries... and mac and cheese and whatever else was collectively brought : ). It wasn't "traditional", and that was wonderful all on its own.

I was ASTOUNDED by the willingness and enthusiasm of this community to celebrate. I was very blessed, very thankful, and very full!



*And I hope you caught the "Portlandia" reference in the title.