Our First Thanksgiving in Germany

Thanksgiving preparations started several weeks in advance. We were having anywhere from 20 to 30 people over for an open house on the Friday after Thanksgiving. The Holiday is not a German holiday and nobody was going to have Thursday or Friday off and that just seemed to be appropriate.

We ordered a fresh whole turkey, 3.5 kilos and had purchased some of the ingredients a couple of weeks in advance so that things like cranberry sauce could be prepared. There is no such thing as canned pumpkin here and Pam made the decision to forgo making pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin. We still had a full menu; Turkey, sweet potato pie, stuffing – 2 types, roasted veggies, a roasted pumpkin mix, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

For many of our guests, this would be their first experience with Thanksgiving, while others had spent some time in the US and had celebrated the holiday at least once. All of our guests speak English well except for our Landlords & neighbors, the Bayers.

Pam started cooking in earnest on Monday after we returned from Budapest, making a chocolate cake and sweet potato pie. Thursday morning we woke up and after a little work around the apartment we headed to the farmer’s market in the Weststadt. There we picked up the Turkey and Pam was able to buy fresh veggies and other materiel for cooking. We also picked up two nice turkey breasts to supplement the turkey. Thankfully, it has been cold, this meant that we are able to us the balcony as a refrigerator. Thursday afternoon saw Pam multi-tasking cooking while on conference calls. We also set up the tables with plates and flatware and serving dishes.
Friday morning, Pam continued her multi-tasking and I went out around noon to get last minute stuff including some bier (Dachsenfranz Weihnachts Bier). We were running a tight schedule with cooking and the Turkey was not cooking on the grill like I would have liked it too and I was a little worried, ok, more than a little worried about the turkey…..but we had two nice turkey breasts that I had yet to start.

I cooked the turkey breasts, one at a time and Pam had food on the floor of the oven at the same time. Pam had also made a last minute decision to make a second Sweet Potato pie, and as per the family tradition, it is served topped with marshmallows (baked and gooey!) as part of the main meal.

Our guests started to arrive around 6pm, the first being Kathrin Sobe who lives just a little ways down the road. Most of our guests were somehow connected with SAP except for the Bayers and our Neighbors, Ben and Katharina. Ben and Katherina had spent two years in NC working at Duke Medical Center on an exchange program and returned to Heidelberg just a couple weeks after we arrived. Ben is an anesthesiologist and Katharine is an Oncologist.

The Otter family were the largest group and included three generations, Tom and Charlotte, Charlotte’s Mother (Toni) and their children, Lily, Daisy and Ollie. It was actually a long day for the kids because it was a Friday and their day started with school. Lily also had a party after school and was pretty wiped out by the time she arrived. She took her book and went to lay down on our bed and 30 minutes later she was a slowly breathing lump under the covers. Ollie (he is 3 I think) played shy and also wound up as a sleeping lump in our bed. Daisy on the other hand is a true party girl. She was very well behaved and changed from her boots to her party shoes. She was never far from her Mother or Grandmother, but was not going to miss any of the action!

My biggest fear was that the Bayers would be left on their own, but they frequently engaged in conversation. They have also been to Budapest and spoke at length with Bettina and Kathe.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and they truly enjoyed the holiday. The Holiday fits in well with German Holiday season just as it does in the US as the Weihnacts Markts (Christmas Markets) opened that Saturday and several people will be keeping this tradition in the future. By far the most popular food was the Sweet Potato pies that Pam made, someone even made a point of cleaning out the pan when it was gone!