Friday, December 6, 2013

A Spanish Thanksgiving

When I first found out that I would be in Barcelona on Thanksgiving, I have to admit I was a little bummed.  I love spending Thanksgiving at my grandma's house and watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with my family.  But my Thanksgiving in Barcelona was amazing! My host family made it so special and I will never forget this wonderful Thanksgiving. 

At school, I taught a lesson to my students about the first Thanksgiving and explained to them why Americans celebrate Thanksgiving.  The students had a lot of fun asking me questions and learning about a new tradition.  After I explained everything to the students we drew some good old hand turkeys! I remember tracing my hand to make a turkey when I was in Elementary school so I thought it would be fun to share that with the kids.  They loved it.  Later on, we made a "Thankful Tree".  I explained to the children what it meant to be thankful and then they each created a leaf and wrote what they were thankful for on the leaf.  I made a tree trunk and we attached all the leaves to the top.  So at the end, the leaves of the tree all said something the kids were thankful for.  I think they really enjoyed making something together.  








Luckily, my parents were in Barcelona for the week! So I got to spend Thanksgiving with them and my wonderful host family.  So after school, I went to meet my parents.  It was their last day in Barcelona so we did a few things that they hadn't seen yet and then headed to my host family's house.  They had offered to cook Thanksgiving dinner for us and we were all going to eat at their home.  Ane's brother in law and sister came for dinner.  And Mary Bruce got to come too! After chatting for a little while we all headed to the dining room for dinner.  I was so impressed with the dinner. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, peas, carrots and even a pumpkin pie! It was all delicious.  Ane did a great job! Thank you for making a wonderful meal for us Americans :)  After dinner we showed them a tradition that we do in our house, breaking the wishbone! Every year, we each grab a side of the wishbone and pull it apart and whoever gets the bigger piece will have their wish come true.  So once we found the wishbone in the turkey, we gave it to Jordi and Naroa.  We let them break it together.  It came out equal! So both their wishes will come true :) It was a fun night!


All of my parents! :) My mom, Ane, me, Jordi and my dad




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