14 kg of potatoes, hand turkeys, and a bottle of Cuba Passions Vodka...

"Without struggle there is no success."

- Frederick Douglas

As all the Americans reading this know, last week was Thanksgiving.  I am sorry mom, I know that Thanksgiving at home is stressful and that you put a lot of work into it, but Thanksgiving at home has nothing on trying to make Thanksgiving in Denmark.  To start with I would say that about three-fourths of American products are not even allowed in Denmark.  Denmark does not allow any food products that are vitamin or mineral enhanced, which is basically everything made in the U.S.  So we did not have canned cranberries, stove-top stuffing, or pumpkin puree.  Amazingly we did find turkeys.  Another issue we had was figuring how much of everything we needed.  Not only were we cooking for 20 people, we also need to convert all the measurements from Metric.  So we bought 14 kilograms of potatoes and did not realize that that was way more than we would ever need, until we got home and realized that 14 kilograms equals 31 pounds.  Yup, we had issues.  But in the end I have to say that for our first time cooking Thanksgiving without our mothers' help, cooking in a foreign country, and the help of strong alcohol, we succeeded.    

We had two 10 pound turkeys.

 Kate was the master chef in this whole operation.  Thankfully she took over the cooking, I was stressed enough and I only took care of the organizational things and runs to the grocery store.

Diana made all the desserts.  We had two pumpkin pies (we managed to find pumpkin puree at a candy store), a cheesecake, and an apple pie!

 See we only went slightly overboard on the potatoes.

Our morning started at 9:00.  Kate had a timeline and everything on when things needed to be done.  

 You can't have Thanksgiving without hand turkeys.  Niklas and Lucy were so proud to learn what they were and to make them.

 Here is Lucy making our cranberry sauce.

Kate's favorite part was stuffing the turkey as you can see.

Niklas also made everyone a name card for on the table. 

We were able to rent out the common room in my apartment building.  And we were even able to find napkins with leaves on them!

In the end we had 4 Australians, 3 Germans, 1 Estonian, 1 Brazilian, 1 New Zealander, and 5 Americans.  

 We originally had said dinner would be at 7:00.  However by the time everything was ready and warm it was actually 8:00.  We even went around and said what we were thankful for.

 Here is the cooking/organizing crew and I would say 4 of my closest friends here.  From left to right: Alex, Lucy, Kate, and Diana.

And then we had dessert!!!!!

 We taught Lucy well, she would make such a good American.

The whole thing was extremely stressful, but definitely worth it.  All of the non-Americans told us that their friends at home are so jealous that they got to have Thanksgiving.  As Americans we kind of take this holiday for granted and we shouldn't.  Even without the actual meaning of Thanksgiving, having a day eating good food with your family is still a good holiday.  

But Denmark has moved on to Christmas, actually Denmark moved on to Christmas about a month ago.  

Now the main streets in the city have lights and there are Christmas trees.

I love all the Christmas decorations and I love that Christmas is less than five weeks away.  But Christmas is kind of bittersweet this year.  Christmas here means that the people who are only here for a semester are starting to leave.  Starting next week people will start going home.  I have made such amazing friends here and I came to the realization a couple days ago that I will probably never see these people again and that is a super sad thought.  

But until they are actually gone we are still going to live it up in Copenhagen.  On Wednesday night we decided to get dressed up and go out.

 We also went shopping on Tuesday to get outfits for us to go out in.  Alex and I ended up buying the same exact dress except mine is cream and hers is black.  Also side note this dress is like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Dress (if you don't know this reference there is a series of books called the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants about 4 friends who buy a pair of pants that somehow fit all of them perfectly).  Alex is in much better shape than me yet somehow we bought the same size dress and it looks good on both of us.  Now we are trying to coordinate shipping the dresses back and forth from the U.S. to Australia.

 Another side note, Niklas went and got his hair cut on Wednesday morning and now he has a "Danish Haircut".  Most of the Danish guys have long hair on top and buzzed hair on the sides.  We are all slowly becoming more Danish.  Just wait I am going to come home 6 foot tall, size 0 and with platinum blond hair.

Random Denmark Facts:
- Danish families celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve.
- Danish families dance around their Christmas tree, I am not kidding, they hold hands and dance around the tree.
- In Denmark cookies and milk are not left out for Santa, however goodies are left out for the elves.
- In Danish Santa Claus is julemanden meaning the Yule Man.