Thanksgiving in Tirana

The week of Thanksgiving finished up a mild November. Walking around Tirana on Thanksgiving Day, it was so warm we needed to take our coats off. For a Northeasterner, it was unusual. Many volunteers from all over the country were in Albania’s capital, being hosted by people who worked at the US Embassy. The meal gave us a chance to meet new people, to enjoy real American food that was shipped in (like cranberry sauce and Butterball turkey) while avoiding Black Friday the following day. It was a great morale booster.

We stayed with a family who hosted a group of my friends, with four of us staying there in total. Some of us were a little anxious that we’d be spending the holiday with a family that had four children. After we got picked up at the embassy, the wife told us that there would be two Americans married to Albanians also in attendance, and that one of them brought her four kids with her. I love kids so I was kind of looking forward to it, plus it’s been years since I’ve been around a swarm little tater tots for the holidays.

As it turned out to many of our surprises, the kids were the best part.

One complained about a decorative turkey made out of construction paper that was hanging from the back of a door. “I hate construction paper and staples, they are never strong enough!” he said. Later, he informed us of his hatred for raisins when he went through little paper turkeys full of raisins and craisins looking for the one or two M&Ms that went along with them. We made turkeys using toothpicks for legs, an orange for the body and gum drops for feathers. By the time we got there, many of the gum drops had already been unwrapped and eaten. Later on, this same kid had the idea of stabbing an orange a couple thousand times with a toothpick and then squeezing it to make orange juice. He must have done that to about eight oranges to try and fill up a glass. But the quote of the night was when this kid must have been picking through the meat on the tray. His mom saw him and promptly informed him that “you can’t caress a piece of ham and then leave it on the plate.”

As for craisins, one of the younger kids dumped the whole bag out on the floor and then stepped in them. When one of the women came over to help him clean up, he started bouncing up and down and said, “This is FUN!” Another one who was three had whip cream on his pie and was picking it up with four fingers… then putting those four fingers in his mouth. We laughed a lot.

All of the guests interacted really well and we had some very interesting and very humorous conversations, about life in Albania as Americans, about the jobs of embassy workers and about our work as volunteers here. All in all, a really great holiday that I definitely want to repeat next year.