big turkeys, small elephants and rubber bananas

Thanksgiving in Maberga.

So, I went to the butcher about a month ago to order our turkey for thanksgiving.
"you want a turkey?"
"yeah.  you know, we're americans, it's thanksgiving time."
"oh right, you guys put the whole thing in the oven, right?"
"yeah."
"you don't want a turkey, you want a tachinella"
"yeah.  the little girl turkey.  that's what you ordered us last time"

So David went back to the butcher on Saturday to pick up our feminine poultry.
"sorry.  they didn't have any  tachinellas, we got you a tachino.  It's 15 kg, is that too big?"
Quick math...15 x 2.2 = 33lbs.  David didn't do the math, he just looked at the beast that weighs as much as our dog.
"yeah.  probably too much.  can you cut it in half?"

So, with half a monster boy turkey in the oven and pots and pans and plates and bowls on every surface, we welcomed our pals for Thanksgiving, Maberga style.  Of the 10 eaters last Sunday we had 4 Thanksgiving virgins.

 Um, yeah, only half of those four are t.g.d virgins.  The other two are Christine and Valerio and they're not, um, virgins.

Chef says....

Soup's on...

 Toast the chef, friends present and family not, thankful for food and all the rest....

Eat.
Eat.
Eat, some more.
Eat.

Let's dance...

And eat cookies...

There were actually three totally beautiful pies that I didn't get a photo of because I was, well, dancing.

Time to retire upstairs for our annual White Elephant gift extravaganza.....

For those of you in the White Elephant dark, it is a gift exchange game in which people bring small, maybe silly maybe not, gifts and they are chosen by the guests by a lottery of numbers, each person getting a new gift or able to take the any that have come before.  Ok, that was a shitty explanation, you can google it if you're really curious.

Gianni got a knife and Ute got a key ring.

Toby got some frilly hand knit wrist warmers and David got screwed...um, I mean David got an old t-shirt I had lying around the house.  Not my most inspired gift which is why it doesn't show up in the photo.  Toby and David were the other two thanksgiving day virgins, by the way.

 Daniela got a hand knit scarf and Piero got a hand knit hat and a banana shaped dildo.

 David got a pack of handmade Christmas cards.  And I got, um, well, an elephant.

 Valerio got a wooden butterfly and Christine got some hand knit washcloths PLUS the grand prize of the day -- the crate of tomatoes that didn't make their way into the bloody mary's.  Some people thought that maybe Piero actually got the grand prize....of course I'm referring to the hand knit hat.

Another great Thanksgiving in Italy.

I'm thankful for Christine who started this tradition.
I'm thankful for David who prepared ALL the food we ate, except the green beans (I did those!)
I'm thankful for all the friends that shared with us in our awesome day, including you guys who are reading about it.