Thanksgiving Part 3 - Pictures!

         I think I said I'd post in "a day or two" but I seem to have lost track of time. It's been a hectic week as we are getting closer to our holiday break, and all of my free time has been spent doing activities and working on Christmas gifts. I've also been collecting as many pictures as I could from Thanksgiving. There were specific ones that I wanted that I only found yesterday, so now I can finally post!  

This is one of my favorite pictures of the night so I'm putting it first so it can be the cover image. We'll come back to it later.

On Wednesday we made the pies! Here is the apple pie filling.

Ananda and Eskil figured out the slicer and cubed 5 loaves of bread for stuffing.

Applesauce!

Elise cutting up veggies for the stuffing. We used coffee mugs to measure in cups. 

Instead of pecan, we ended up with a maple walnut pie. Delish!

The Germans--Sofia and Alina--fitting and filling the pie crusts.

Pumpkin, aka sweet potato pie.

Me mixing the stuffing. Everything was in huge proportions!

We had two turkeys for our feast.

On Thursday, Ananda and I raced the clock to stuff the turkeys and put them in the oven before 3.

Most of the stuffing was in the turkey, but there was also a vegetarian stuffing, and one that used chicken broth but that didn't fit in the birds.

Photobombed by Tommaso.

Took a break to play Kings Corners. I taught some friends, and now its the most popular card game at school!

We peeled about 50 potatoes and 3 butternut squash. I think Elise is peeling with a cheese slicer.

Mashing the squash.

It was hard work to mash so many potatoes. And it took a lot of milk and butter to perfect them. 

Turkeys came out looking great! I had to FaceTime my parents to help make sure they were done. 

Ananda taking the stuffing out of the turkeys.

Bjorn making the vegetarian gravy. 

Ananda worked on the regular gravy, and Alina helped wrap everything to be taken to the art room.

Fabian and Eric working together to carve the turkeys.

They did such a nice job, and even separated the meat! 

Meanwhile, the art girls went a bit overboard with the American themed decorations :)

Elise helped me rearrange the order of the food buffet until I was satisfied. 

Kitchen team group picture! This fantastic group spent about 12 hours over 2 days working to make an amazing meal come to life. From left to right is Bjorn, Ananda, Sofia, Fabian, me, Alina, Elise and Emilie.  Everybody had positive attitudes the whole time, helped each other out, kept cool heads throughout the chaos, and made the day truly special. 

The food looked amazing! 

Here's me giving a speech. I needed two tries before I was composed enough to tell everyone what they were about to eat. 

All that time spent cooking was so worth it!

We had pies and ice cream for desert, as well as homemade whipped cream.

Everybody was able to try one of each.

Here I am smiling, not realizing that the adorably painted rock that was placed right where I wanted to put my drink was my mafia murder weapon, and had killed me when I moved it a minute before. With all the effort it took my killer to paint and arrange, I can't even complain. Despite being literally murdered on my favorite day of the year, I had the most wonderful time, and wouldn't change a thing! 

        If you are interested in seeing more photos, here is a link to a folder of all the pictures I have compiled.  Thanksgiving 2020 Google Drive