Thanksgiving in Finland 2.0

We arranged a few weeks ago to have the missionaries over for Thanksgiving dinner, just like we did last year. It's a different set of missionaries, of course, but at the time we invited them, the missionaries assigned to our area were both American.

Then one of them got transferred to Espoo on Tuesday. Tuesday! He told me the news and said he was so disappointed to miss Thanksgiving with some Americans.

In his place, we ended up with a Swedish missionary. So tonight, we ate Thanksgiving dinner with one American and one Swede.

And it turns out that some sister missionaries (both American) just got to Turku last night. If I had known, I would have invited them. The elders promised not to brag too much to the sister missionaries about their Thanksgiving feast.

I'm not usually a guest-having-over person for holidays - I much prefer showing up with food at someone else's house, like we did for four out of five years in Sharjah. But I'm glad we have the missionaries to invite over and make Thanksgiving special for us, because it makes sure that I go all out on the cooking. I don't love the Thanksgiving prep, but I LOVE the results - sitting down for that delicious meal once a year. It's somehow worth all the hours in the kitchen.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(And yes: those are a Star Wars tablecloth and paper plates. The eight-year-old designed the tablescape.)