McMasters 4th Annual Expat Thanksgiving

This year, may, in fact, have been my favourite Thanksgiving so far! I had an absolute blast, we had a great bunch of our nearest and dearest peeps ’round our table, 12 adults, 2 kids and 3 toddlers – it was crazy good!

As always, we just opened our door (and table) to any and all of our friends who happen to be in Houston, who don’t have family visiting in town, or who aren’t travelling to family out of town. It tends to end up being a largely expat Thanksgiving, and that is how it’s dubbed in our ‘circles’. This year was our Fourth Annual Expat Thanksgiving – we both enjoyed it immensely and I’m already on a countdown til next year, (yes, I love it that much!) I’m already shopping for new table cloths!

P1180267 — Colin and I, ready to rock and roll (and eat!)

As always, we had a great group of people with us this year and I’m truly thankful to have every one of them in my life. This year I was a lot more laid back than normal – I attribute that to the fact my sister is in town and she helped me with every bit of food prep that I had to do, cutting my ‘doing’ time in half, which was a huge relief.

On Thanksgiving day, most of the work was done ahead of time, which resulted in us eating a relaxed and delicious meal with friends and lounging around for a few hours afterward, just catching up with friends. Like I said, it was lovely!

P1180325 — Choir friends Sheri, Lindsay and I

I learned at Thanksgiving two years ago, that although I am capable of feeding 15-20 people, it’s much less stressful for me (and less expensive for Col and I) if we make it potluck and for everyone to bring a dish (or two).

So, once again this year, I asked everyone to bring a dish, in fact, most were ‘assigned’ two. I asked people to volunteer to bring something that was something special to their own Thanksgiving (I don’t like messing with other peoples tradition) and then I split up the rest of the items that completed our table.

The menu:

Starters: