It’s been a good day. Really. November 23 is a national holiday in Japan, so we celebrated Thanksgiving today, on Friday.

Last night, and today until we left our home before 3, was busy with a lot of cooking prep… We celebrated thanksgiving with a group of 21 friends (14 adults; 7 kids) at the Thomson’s home. Wendi and I both made a turkey so we would have plenty – and we did. (Just for the record – our 17 pound turkey from Costco cost about 45 dollars! But it’s worth it once or twice a year)….I also made a new corn pudding recipe in the crockpot (now posted on my recipe website- it was really delicious and helps doing it in the crockpot when we have tiny ovens and can’t cook more than one thing at a time)..Linda Spier’s always-popular recipe for Vermont Walnut Pumpkin Cheesecake…fried crab wontons, sausage stuffing, and Eric’s gravy. Wendi and others also made lots of great food- it was wonderful; only missing cranberry sauce, which we couldn’t find this year.

Here’s some photo highlights:

Megumi eating the last of the corn pudding:

There was an Elvis sighting…

We love having our friend Becky Johnson, who recently moved to Nagoya, Japan from Florida, stay with us over the weekend. Annie’s loving the attention:

And – we did my favorite Thanksgiving ritual…. the thanksgiving leaves. We started four years ago with a simple idea I found in a family magazine. Each person wrote down what they are thankful for that year on a paper leaf, and we went around and shared these and then hung them on a string…we have done this each year, and laminated the paper leaves afterwards, last year making them into a thanksgiving tree. The leaves continue to spread…and its fun to look back over the past years and remember friends who have been with us and what God has been doing in our midst.
Here is our tree this year, and Eric’s and my leaves (how good are your eyes??)

While much of the day had familiar American flavors, we ended it with a bit more of a Japanese flavor….Rather than watching American football, when we came home we watched — sumo! This weekend is the championship for the fall competition, and Eric had to see who won Friday’s bouts on Sumo Digest.