Thanksgiving in Scotland

This was our first year to prepare our Thanksgiving meal on our own and it was a great experience! The most responsibility I have had at my extended family celebrations in the past is the relish tray, so you really can't go wrong there. This year we not only had to prepare the side dishes, but the most important part of the dinner as well: the turkey!!

I did some studying up online and we managed to successfully thaw the turkey in time to prepare it. We were pleasantly surprised to find all the giblets nicely packaged and stuffed into the turkey, so we didn't have to do much digging around at all. I made Tony do all the handling of the turkey, and he was glad to do it. Here he is in the preparation stages:

After consutling with several people, we ultimately decided to put some butter under the skin, stick it in a roasting bag, dust it with flour and let it bake. We were pleasantly surprised with the outcome - nicely browned, tender and fully cooked!! Now we can start branching out next year with recommendations of brushing it with olive oil, combining herbs, brining and maybe even stuffing it!


We had several American friends over for Thanksgiving dinner and had a great time celebrating together. I wasn't quite sure how everything would get baked and stay warm with the miniature nature of our oven. Somehow it all came together and we had a wonderful meal. Our friend Jackie (below with her husband Christopher and their first baby beautifully showing its presence!) brought a delicious sweet potato casserole, homemade dinner rolls and an apple pie that was almost too perfect to cut into!

Here's our small group around the table: Ryan, Jackie, Christopher, Tony and Matt. We rearranged our living room in order to set up the table and fit all of us around it!
As I said in yesterday's post, there is so much to be grateful for and it was particularly hard to narrow it down this year. Our distance from family and friends in the US and distance from our dear friends and kids in Peru has made for a difficult transition, but it also accentuated the many things we have to be grateful for. And these pictures reflect another element of my gratefulness this year: good friends and the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.