Thanksgiving in Japan

Undoubtedly, one of the toughest times to be away from family and friends is during the holidays. Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I think it’s because there isn’t a lot of hoopla around this particular holiday, just really good food and hanging out with people you love.
This year, even though we were missing home, we were lucky enough to be asked to two Thanksgiving dinners. The first dinner was on Thursday, November 24th, proper Thanksgiving Day. It was kind of strange because I had the day off work, too. Not because it was American Thanksgiving Day, but Japanese Labor Day. Regardless, no school means more time to eat. Another ALT in our town, Aura, was nice enough to invite us over to her apartment for dinner. Her mom, dad, and younger sister were visiting from California and brought a beef brisket and a turkey stowed away in her checked luggage. Oh boy! All together, there were going to be about 13 people for dinner. Our job was to bring the mashed potatoes. I had gone to the store the night before to buy the supplies, but for some reason the store was closed. No problem, I thought, I can go to the store in the morning. Little did I know that Murphy would pay me a Thanksgiving visit and would slap his law right across my turkey!
Most supermarkets in Japan open at 10:00 am. Aura had asked us to be at her place for noon. No problem. I was set to walk out the door at 9:50, when I heard voices outside. No it was not Murphy, but Asada-san, the housing manager for the Ito Board of Education. He and a crew of three other men came to put in our new bathroom window. To make a long story short, after some chit-chat, it was 10:45 before I got to the store. The line at the store was long; the traffic home was horrid; it took me forever to peel the potatoes; the water wouldn’t boil; the hand mashing was a PAIN; (mashed potatoes are not as easy without an electric hand mixer) needless to say, we were late. We got to Aura’s house about 12:40.
One of the things that was POUNDED into my head before I left for Japan was how the Japanese are a people of promptness. They are on time and they expect other people to be as well. Needless to say, I felt terrible. I apologized when I got there and the several Japanese people that were there, along with everyone else, were extremely gracious, but I still felt bad. (Oburr, if you are reading this, I am still sorry I was late!)
Dinner was being put on the table when we got there, but we had just enough time to make the international debut of a long standing Hudak Family Thanksgiving tradition; the shaking of the butter. It started at my preschool, Appleseed, but my family adopted it maybe 15 years ago and has been a beloved Turkey Day activity ever since. Fill a glass jar with heavy whipping cream, add salt to taste, and take turns shaking it until the cream actually “pop” into butter (just like the pilgrims did it!). The person holding the jar when that happens is the winner and usually gets a small prize like candy (just like the pilgrims did it?!) It was a great way to keep the kids out of the kitchen while my mom cooked.
Several of the other guests tried it, but they didn’t seem as excited as I was. Except, that is, for one of Aura’s mom’s friends. In her limited English, she told me that she wrote a newsletter to cancer patients and was going to write about the “magic cream”. It made me happy:)
The dinner was really nice with the brisket, turkey/ham, mashed potatoes, cheese, bread, cookies, seven-layer dip, and even a quasi-pumpkin pie.






We stayed for a few hours, but a food coma started to kick in, so Paul and I headed home relax in front of the TV.

Our second Turkey day was Sunday, December 3rd. Our friend Katie organized a Thanksgiving picnic down in her town of Minami Izu. Katie had been cooking like a crazy woman for days before trying to get everything ready. It's hard to prepare food for 15 with an oven the size of a microwave!

I was worried about eating outside, but it turned out to be a really nice day. We had dinner at a park next to a river. There was tons of good food and good company.

I brought the butter shaking here too and it was received with a little more enthusiasm...

It was a cool day, so to warm up and burn off some calories we started playing the unofficial national sport of Japan-dodge ball. Using two-liter bottles of pop, we made a court and had some pretty intense games.

We ate and played until the sun was getting ready to set, then we packed up our cars and headed back to Ito.

All in all, both Thanksgiving feasts were great and definitely memorable!