High Thanks

Those daring enough to click on the highlighted "Thanksgiving" will be delighted by a post-dated blog. Yes, this was intended to come closer to the time of the event, but time as gotten away from me and I've been a wee bit preoccupied with my new kiwi souvenir, whom I'll from now on call Jason.

I was a tad bit misleading when I said Thanksgiving does not exist as a holiday here. It doesn't exist as a holiday for the native population. However, it becomes a newly recognized holiday for a certain segment of the population when the two doctors working in the same clinic are American. That's right, my colleague and I brought the Thanksgiving tradition to New Zealand. After all, who's going to deny a good feed and few hours off work.

After much discussion, it was decided by the Maori staff that we needed to partake in the traditions of Thanksgiving, so they organized the day (the fourth Thursday of November, of course), divvied up the food, and set up the table. We even got all the office staff to decorate kindergarten-style hand-traced turkey drawings in the days preceding the feast.

My partner, Rich (or, more appropriately, his wife), was to roast the turkey. Not a small feat considering turkey is not a native fowl and hence, not that easy to get at your local grocer. I was to bring the pumpkin pie. A dessert looked at with much skepticism considering pumpkin is regularly eaten as a vegetable here and not thought of as dessert. This was emphasized by one friend's comment, "Why would you ever want to bake pumpkin in a pie?" The remainder of the sides were brought by clinic staff in true potluck fashion. They even set up a mini-hangi to steam the vegetables and stuffing, making it a cross cultural event. It was a fantastic day. The spread equivalent to any American feast. In true Thanksgiving style we all sat around and ate until our pants were about to burst. The turkey was a huge hit and at the end of the day not a single sliver of pumpkin pie remained. I guess there are some American traditions worth immigrating.