A thanksgiving to remember

Thanksgiving this year was an interesting event. The chateau team had thought it would be enjoyable to host Thanksgiving dinner for the missionary team at the chateau on thanksgiving day and so we started making all the arrangements. What is in the US the most simple detail, the turkey, here is the most difficult

 as they are not in the habit of celbrating Thanksgiving they are rather hard to find before mid-December. I inquired at several supermarkets and at our restaurant supply store all of which were unable to come up with a whole turkey. Apparently, it is simply to early to find them. So we came up with some alternatives to the turkey in the form of chickens and quails. Having been recenlty introduced to the delectable little birds I though it was a perfect opportunity to become better aquainted with them. Well better aquainted I became, too aquainted.Thanksgiving morning we girls gathered to begin preperation for the dinner that afternoon. We were responsible for the meat, stuffing, mashed potatoes and the afternoons appetizers as the rest of the dishes were divided up amoung the attendees. The preperations though turned into a larger project then we had predecited when we oped the quails and found them a bit too intact with heads and most of their vital organs, not quite what I was hoping for. Well I am proud to say that I was not too faint of heart to try my hand at buchering, and in fact these rather distasteful jobs were completely done by the female part of the team. We like to think that we had a more traditional thanksgiving experience as the pilgrim women didn't get their game from the grocery store in its tidy packaging with all the work done but the stuffing.
Well that made things slower but we still got everything ready for the 3 o'clock arrival of our guests for

 appetizers and the dinner at 5. We were 18 for dinner which was a nice number for not feeling like we were without family but it didn't make too many quails eithor.
After dinner we had a special treat. Maribeth made a pinata for the kids and they had fun whacking at the paper turkey and the adults had fun watching as the kids would stop the hitting after each time candy fell.
It was a great thanksgiving with much to give thanks for,the friends, the fellowships, and especially the fact that hopefully that is the last time I have to gut a bird on thankgiving day!

Here is me doing the dirty deed of head removal on the quails

Our missionary family gathered around the table.

Here is part of the pre-meal spread of snacks in the Chateau's petite salon with a warm roaring fire.

Here is Addy Burgess going at the turkey pinata.

Here is the table set for everything

Here was the only turkey we found