Thanksgiving 2

AVF has coffees every Thursday morning so members can get together and chat while they enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee and a pastry.  Periodically, a group from a specific country will host one of the coffees to commemorate a national holiday or just to share goodies from their country.  For instance, the Irish always host a St Patrick’s Day coffee.  Thus, it made sense for the Americans to host a Thanksgiving coffee on Thanksgiving Day.

To be honest we hadn’t thought much about having an AVF Thanksgiving Day coffee.  We were too busy packing what we would need for our 5 weeks in Lyon including Thanksgiving at Estelle and Laurent’s.  That is until we got an email from Dominique telling us about the planned American Thanksgiving Day coffee and asking us to bring something “American” and Thanksgiving-themed.  What could we bring that is “American”, fits easily in our suitcases, and can be obtained on short notice? Our apartment in Lyon has no real oven so taking something to bake there was out of the question.  Then Anna got the great idea of going to our local Dollar Tree store and buying Thanksgiving table cloths, napkins, fold-out or expandable decorations, and other table decorations.  Nice, flat stuff that fit well in our luggage and didn’t weigh much.

Why Dominique ended up organizing an American Thanksgiving Day coffee was a bit of a mystery to us.  Somehow, although she is a native of France who spent a good deal of her adult life in Ireland and has visited but never lived in the US, she got “volunteered” to take the lead on the American coffee.  Apparently, there just weren’t many Americans around when the planning started so the event was placed in Dominique’s capable hands. 

Then there was a minor American invasion:  Maria and Tom arrived from Iowa followed by our arrival.  Maria suddenly found herself “in charge,” several people volunteered to prepare “American dishes” for the coffee, and we were able to present her with a bag full of Thanksgiving table decorations and the promise to help set up and host.

Some of the American crew and friends part way
 through our Thanksgiving feast.  (You can see
some of the dishes are nearly gone.)

The result was a huge success!  The decorations we brought fit the tables perfectly, someone contributed a lovely cornucopia, we had streamers of American flags, and little American flag-motif signs to explain what each dish was.  Maria, who teaches French at a university, explained the Thanksgiving story and holiday to our guests in her flawless French, and the celebration began.  We had pumpkin pies, apple pies, pecan pies, chocolate cupcakes, small peanut butter sandwiches, even hot dogs!  In fact we had so much food, we were wondering what we would do with the leftovers.  But, no problem - there weren’t any!

People had such a good time and enjoyed the food so much that they just didn't want to leave; the coffee ended up lasting much later than the usual noon end time.   And, you can be sure that Thanksgiving Day and American hospitality (and food!) will be fondly remembered at AVF in Lyon for some time to come.