Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Vietnam, but that didn't stop us from celebrating it. We had two celebrations on Thanksgiving this year, both wildly different (and sadly, neither included the Turkey Bowl).
We started off at St. Paul American School. Our plan was to let Wyatt and Jack attend classes in the morning before a school-wide Thanksgiving lunch took place. However, the classes in the morning were cancelled to allow students to work on their country projects and presentations which are due next week. That meant Wyatt and Jack got to mingle with students and help with projects.
Lunch started with a 10-minute presentation by Libby to educate everyone about the meaning of Thanksgiving. St. Paul had contacted the American Embassy a few weeks ago to ask if a speaker could come out, and the Embassy recommended Libby, who is here in Vietnam after all as a Fulbright Scholar.
And then we moved on to the feast, which was a potluck -- each family brought some food and the school provided the turkeys. Because St. Paul is an international school, we had some pretty interesting meal choices, including sushi, banh cuon, Slovakian ghoulash, and spaghetti:
After returning to the apartment and resting, the adults went off to our second Thanksgiving meal, hosted by Susan Sutton, the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy (the kids got to head off for some sandwiches at Tous Les Jours and a movie). I was pretty excited to see green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. But overall, this Thanksgiving day was interesting, unique, surreal, and fun, even without the football and Macy's parade.
Libby and Susan:
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