Thanksgiving... NZ style.

Because obviously Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in New Zealand (if you aren't sure why, umm, go ask your mom. or your 3rd grade history teacher), we weren't going to celebrate it.  But I'm American, and I'm pretty sure home-country holidays follow you to whatever country you currently live in (right?), so at the last minute I decided we were going to celebrate.  It wasn't exactly the picture-perfect Thanksgiving, by any means....  Here's our turkey... which is actually a chicken.  Bought pre-cooked, and threw it in the microwave to heat it.  Turkeys are sort of impossible to find (you can't even buy turkey deli meat for sandwiches, bummer, I know).

We added some frozen veggies and frozen potatoes and instant gravy to the mix, and voila.  Oh yeah and our chicken-turkey came with stuffing.  I couldn't find cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie either.  But overall it was Thanksgiving-ish, and not bad for being thrown together very last minute.  

The kicker... this dinner was at 9:30 pm.  Why is that baby there, you'd like to know?? ME TOO friends, me too.  She slept from 7:15 to 8:30ish, and woke up literally RIGHT as I was making dinner (we had to eat late because Mark didn't get home until then).  So Mark was on get-the-baby-back-to-sleep duty, and I "cooked" (boiled frozen veggies, baked frozen potatoes, and microwaved a pre-cooked chicken).  And Riley decided she was not about to let us have her first Thanksgiving without her.  Our options were to let her cry in her crib while we shoveled food in our mouths, or to bring her out with us so we could eat in peace.  Clearly we chose the latter.  She was like a little deer in headlights, so stunned to be brought out of her room, and then she could not stop smiling.  And of course this turned out to be a huge mistake, as she did not go back to sleep until 11.  Did she sleep in??   Ohhhhh no.  5:45am up an at 'em (with one wake-up before then).  SIIGGGHHHH.

We were too busy trying to get her to sleep last night to eat our delicious (frozen) apple pie I bought, so we ate it this morning for breakfast.  Or at least I did.  Happy Thanksgiving to all you wonderful people celebrating it for real (not with chicken and frozen food) in the US!