What you say? What's Fakesgiving?

Well, this weekend I had a Fakesgiving party.  A couple of weeks ago I decided that Fakesgiving is like the ugly step child of Thanksgiving. Less formal. More fun because you get to eat a lot, drink and then drink some more without the pressure of a formal holiday. So I invited friends over to celebrate!

It was tons of fun.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="614" caption="Snacks at Fakesgiving"]<a class="tt-flickr tt-flickr-Large" title="Snacks at Fakesgiving" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29050866@N06/6454259159/"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7031/6454259159_39d4058818_b.jpg" alt="Snacks at Fakesgiving" width="614" height="410" /></a>[/caption]

Why not actually celebrate Thanksgiving? Well,  I was traveling for the actual Thanksgiving but I still wanted to celebrate with friends so this gave me a chance to do just this a little after the fact.

And I love Thanksgiving so Fakesgiving was a perfect stand in.<!--more-->

In fact, I think that Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday with Fakesgiving coming in as a close runner up. It's a celebration of the good things in your life--friends and family and somehow it's still not<em> too</em> commercial. You get to cook great food. You get to make a mess in your kitchen. It gives you an excuse to make paper hand-turkeys to hang on your fridge and wear your turkey socks (if you have them)!!

Anyhow, back to Fakesgiving. It was a great success. I squeezed a bunch of my friends into my too small apartment and made these friends from disparate parts of my life hang out. I made a ton of food which was no small feat considering the size of my oven and the fact that I only have two burners. Everyone was super cheerful--I think the mulled wine helped but really it's a testament to my friends!

<em>How did I get so lucky to have such great friends?!</em>

We started with a range of appetizers--hummus (store bought), pea and mint dip, guacamole, stuffed mushrooms, a tray of green olives, black olives, pickled baby onions and pickled hot peppers as well as chips and crackers. The actual Fakesgiving menu included two deli roasted chickens from Billa, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cream corn casserole, green beans, rosemary roasted carrots, gravy, canned cranberry relish (imported from the States and brought by a guest) and a delicious broccoli salad that A. made.

Dessert was a big hit. A made a pecan pie (turns out that you can buy pecans at Carrefore), P. made a sweet potato pie and I made a yogurt cake and whipped cream. Yep and even more impressively I whipped it by hand. I don't own an electric mixer.

That means I also mashed the potatoes by hand. I am serious about Fakesgiving. Oh and I don't have a microwave either so the whole affair was a juggling act. Not to mention the fact that I didn't want to use plastic silverware so I spent a decent amount of time washing silverware. No big deal, it was totally worth it.

In the aftermath of this party a few things have become more clear: I should have bought a new mop ages ago. It was so easy to clean up after the party with my new mop. Really, who new that a new mop-head would make such a difference?! I think that I've now washed all of the dishes in my house at least twice in a period of 12 hours and I think my fingers might permanently look like raisins now. It's incredibly satisfying to recycle bottles because when you toss them into the recycling container they break  loudly when they land on the others.

Now, it's official: here in ends my three weekends of Thanksgiving celebrations. I am onto the next big holiday: <em>Christmas</em>.