Thanksgiving Traditions!!

Today's Plenty to Be Thankful for Blog Challenge is: Thanksgiving Traditions!!!  I love traditions.  I don't feel like I have enough of them in my life.  It is my goal to make as many things a tradition as possible. 

Sadly, for Thanksgiving I don't actually have too many traditions, minus the normal Thanksgiving foods.  Thanksgiving hasn't been a "regular" holiday for a long time.  When I was growing up overseas, our tradition was to invite some host country nationals to come over (that means we invited some Greek friends when we lived in Greece, some Italian friends when we lived in Italy, and some English friends when we lived in England) to celebrate with us.

Actually, now that I think about it, my tradition for Thanksgiving is to celebrate it differently every year!  Here are some photos from past Thanksgivings:

2005

Melanie and me - our first Honduran Thanksgiving

This was my first Thanksgiving in Honduras.  My friend Melanie (also a Peace Corps Volunteer) came and celebrated with me.  I can't remember what we made, but we then headed to some other friends' house for an actual turkey dinner.

Thanksgiving in San Marcos de Colon

After having our little Thanksgiving at my house we headed up to the mountains to have Thanksgiving with a bunch of other volunteers.  Here we had a lot more traditional type foods.  It was yummy and definitely a treat to hang out with a bunch of other volunteers and celebrate the holiday together.

2006

A scrawny looking turkey!

The following year I celebrated with some volunteers too and we found ourselves a scrawny little turkey.  Hondurans don't eat turkey so it's hard to find one!  We celebrated with some JICA volunteers (Japan's volunteer corps) too.  This turkey was the toughest thing I had ever eaten.  It was like turkey-gum.

Full bellies!

Here are some of the other volunteers (and me - on the right) after our meal.  It was a fun Thanksgiving and I was full!  I think I had made the sweet potatoes this time.  I can't remember.

2007

A Texan Thanksgiving - me, in orange, my sister in blue, and my cousin in gray

The following year (I was no longer living in Honduras) I went to Dallas to visit my sister and we headed to my cousin's house in Austin to celebrate.  She had a friend from Washington visiting as well.  We had turkey soup that year, instead of an actual whole turkey.  It was fun to be celebrating with family again.

2008

 Not sure what happened here.  I think I went to my sister's in-law's house.  No pictures....

2009

Me (right) and my sister in Ecuador

In 2009 my sister invited me to go to Ecuador with her the week of Thanksgiving.  So off we went!  The hotel we were staying at in Banos offered a Thanksgiving dinner for $12 so we signed ourselves up!  Ok, we didn't sign up, we showed up and didn't realize we needed to sign up.  Whoops!  It was a fun surprise since we weren't expecting turkey in Ecuador!

2010

I don't have any pictures of 2010.  I think they were on my sister's camera.  It was my husband's first Thanksgiving.  The thing he remembers most about Thanksgiving is that the turkey made him tired!! 

2011

You'll just have to wait and see - but it will be different!!!  One new tradition I'm hoping to start?  I have officially organized a 5k Turkey Trot in my neighborhood.  I have about 10 people signed up and I even made my own race numbers!

So, that's about it.

What Thanksgiving Traditions do you celebrate???