Give Thanks for Costco

As last week drew on, I would see everyone's facebook posts about Thanksgiving and think that they were all confused. Isn't it May? Thanksgiving is in November. It's definitely Spring, and Thanksgiving is definitely NOT in Spring. I would say it's in Fall, but around here if I use that F-word they give me funny looks - apparently it's called Autumn. Thursday morning I woke up and went to work as if it were a regular Thursday - because it was. We had tacos for dinner (minus the refried beans - they can't seem to get those right in Australia). Friday morning I noticed that Phil was watching football and I thought it was really odd - why was he watching football on a Friday morning? Then I realized it was Thanksgiving in the US, and with Thanksgiving comes football.
Yesterday we had dinner with the Ex-Pat American Meetup group - on the menu was turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and pumpkin pie for dessert. It was nice to hang out with people whose accents we could instantly understand, and the food felt very familiar. It was only one plate of food though, definitely not in the Thanksgiving tradition. Shouldn't we get a few more plates of food? I actually left Thankgiving dinner perfectly satisfied, not a bit too full. That was a new experience for me.
What really saved Thankgiving for me this year though was Costco. Before dinner we stopped over there to see if they had anything wonderful we "needed". The nice thing about the Costco here is sometimes we can find American things that we can't find at normal grocery stores - like orange (cheddar) cheese for example. Well yesterday we found pumpkin pie. I was so excited. The turkey, mashed potatos, beans, those are all things I can either make myself or make do without. But since they don't seem to sell canned pumpkin here, it's very difficult to replicate the deliciousness of pumpkin pie. So now for the low, low price of $6.99 we will eat pumpkin pie with every meal all week long. And for that, I am truly thankful. Thank you Costco for making Thanksgiving real in Oz.

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