Beijing Reverie: Thanksgiving and a Birthday, Abroad

Thanksgiving is definitely my favorite holiday. I love the lack of commercialism and the fact that it's centered on eating and drinking with family and friends.

Our delectable feast.

So I was feeling a bit down that I'd miss my first Nashville Thanksgiving in years. My mom goes all out, with decorations, a beautifully-arranged table and a new menu every year -- yes, you read that correctly. It's incredible the amount of time and effort she puts into the meal and my family from California, Massachusetts and Virginia comes to Nashville to celebrate.

In days leading up to the holiday, a couple friends wrote me notes about fond memories of Thanksgivings abroad. Rachel, a good friend from college, told me a story about throwing together a great Thanksgiving in Argentina, where the American Embassy wouldn't sell canned pumpkin to expats (only to state department brass) and trying to squeeze a turkey into her tiny oven. Her story gave me hope for some good memories here in Beijing.

I wasn't let down. On Thanksgiving, we joined friends Brian, Brittany and Maya at a wonderful little Peking Duck restaurant, where we sipped American cabernet and ate fried pumpkin fries (they were absolutely incredible), purple yams, Asian green beans, spinach with boiled peanuts, and, of course, Peking duck. We then continued our celebration at an expat-owned microbrewery, going around the table and cheering to what we each were thankful for.

Brittany, Brian and Maya around the Thanksgiving table.

Cheers!

The next morning we did a Google hangout with my family, which was wonderful and my parents lit the Menorah, since Hanukkah fell on Thanksgiving, too. Seriously, what did expats do before Skype? The most memorable part of the video call was seeing my almost 90-year-old grandmother trying to figure out where to put her face on the screen; sometimes we saw her chin, other times her forehead. It was absolutely adorable!

Two nights later, our friend Josh invited us to an expat potluck Thanksgiving that was teeming with legit dishes. Josh had fried a turkey in his courtyard and side dishes included rosemary biscuits, mac and cheese with bacon, green bean casserole (Scott's favorite), sausage stuffing, mashed potatoes, pecan pie and pumpkin pie. It was a wonderful experience and we met a slew of new people. (Sadly, I was too busy eating here to take photos.)

With lots of thanks and full bellies we continued the celebration train on Wednesday, with Scott's birthday. He wanted to keep it low key and had the simple -- or so I thought -- request of sausage, egg and cheese on a bagel for breakfast. I went to seven different supermarkets and bakeries and not one had bagels. I later found out there's only one decent bagel place near by and you have to order online the day before for delivery. #Wifefail

A difficult find in Beijing.

But I made it up to him by finding cocoa Rice Krispies and marshmallows to make his favorite birthday treat. We still don't have our shipment -- it's held up in customs at the moment, we're told -- so I couldn't use a pan, but improvised with glass bowls. Then we had dinner at a lovely Hunan restaurant, where the dishes were spicy, but delicious.