Happy (early) Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving meal on Saturday. Gen (in the polka dot top) and Tor were there with their daughter, Milena, as were Merel (with the blond hair) and her husband Denis. Julian and Milena are classmates and have a special relationship that involves a lot of kissing and hugging, which they were happy to demonstrate for us.

The turkey turned out great, thanks to brining and lots of butter squirted under the skin before roasting. The pumpkin pie was also a hit, which sort of surprised me, as Adrian is pretty adamant that it's gross and I've begun to think of it like peanut butter and root beer, i.e. only something you like if you're American and you've grown up with it. So I was happy that our non-American guests liked it (or at least humored me and pretended to).

Of course the best thing was the lovely company and lots of chatting about nothing in particular (my favorite topic). I loved Merel and Denis' description of Dutch Christmas, which involves black men from Spain on boats, wooden shoes, big ginger cookies, and no presents on Christmas itself.

I don't know if we did much to convince Merel and Denis to have kids because Milena had an allergic reaction to something, poor thing, and got red and puffy, Julian was up until midnight because of his recent "I hate my bed" attitude, and Ava insisted on sprinting everywhere the entire night.