New Zealand Thanksgiving was a success! We got a late start due to all the water problems so we actually got to eat at around 8 but that’s ok! We had a loaf of turkey, that’s the best way to describe it; they don’t sell turkey all year round they only sell it around Christmas. We had 3 forms of potatoes roasted, mashed, and fried. Carrots in brown sugar, Alfie was a fan of that one he had never heard of that before. Olivia brought wine and made the British version of stuffing; it was essentially a meatball made with pork spices and onions, really delicious. We also got to use our slow cooker for the 1st time. We couldn’t have the traditional pumpkin pie because they just don’t do that here and all the ingredients were too expensive for our budget at the moment. Everyone was a little disappointed, neither Kiwis nor Brits have pumpkin pie, they have heard about it and wanted it but have never had the chance. Instead we made pumpkin bread pudding, which turned out pretty good. The hardest part was finding pumpkin puree.

They have pumpkins here but they are not like the ones at home, they have a different taste and texture. We searched high and low for the canned pumpkin puree. We finally found it online at a Countdown and had to ask the manager about it. He called someone on the radio and said to meet him in isle 7. We literally hopped all the way there and cheered when he handed it to us. It was in the International section of the grocers on top of the shelf still in the shipping container. He said they keep it up there just for this holiday! Needless to say we made fools of ourselves again but made a few friends in the process. We explained to 3 people in the store what we were so excited about! All three are now want to visit the great US of A!

And of course we played Christmas music throughout the whole dinner. It’s so strange getting into the Christmas spirit with songs talking about snow and the fireplace when it’s like 80 degrees outside.

We also found out that along with Maggie and I, Alfie, Olivia, and New Mike are all middle children, the best position in the family!