Bringing American Thanksgiving to Ireland

So, have I mentioned yet that I love my program? There may be a few things I’d change about the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity, but the program does a nice job of recognizing that we are a class of mostly international students (I’d say maybe a quarter American, a quarter Irish, and the majority European, with a few students from Africa and Asia), and as such, organizes activities here and there to welcome us to Ireland. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the first event, but the second main event was a potluck held in conjunction with American Thanksgiving (ish).

The dinner was actually last night, a full week before Thanksgiving, but is likely to be the only Thanksgiving dinner I’ll be attending. The ISE provided the turkey, and the attendees signed up to bring the side dishes. We had all the traditional Thanksgiving food covered (mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc) but as an international potluck, we also some fun dishes like Chinese dessert dumplings in the shape of a rabbit! My contribution was a pumpkin dip (mix up pumpkin, whipped cream, all spice, and sugar and serve with strips of sugary pie crust or pretzels for a sweet/salty combo that tastes like pumpkin pie but takes less than half the time).

Bringing in the Irish culture, we had mince pies and ‘poppers’ which are gift-wrapped tubes (like a tootsie roll but bigger) and when you pull them apart, they make a flash-bang (surprising when you don’t know what it is and aren’t expecting it!), and inside you find a plastic crown and an incredibly corny joke like the kind you’d find on the back of a Laffy Taffy in the US.

Examples:
Q: What is white and goes up?
A: A confused snowflake!

Q: What goes “Oh, Oh, Oh”?
A: Santa when he’s going backwards!

All in all, there were about 50 of us in attendance – many of the International Peace Studies students, some from the Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies program, and most of the lecturers and support staff. Christen gave a nice toast at the end giving thanks for all that we had and were able to share. Kat, who spent the last year working on a Native American reservation in Montana, was also thankful to be sure, but helped ensure that we Americans accurately explained the holiday to our international friends less familiar with the tradition. After filling our bellies and doling out the leftovers, we continued the night at one of the local pubs in Ranelagh (conveniently close to my house!) until we could fit nothing more – food or liquid – into our stomachs and I for one retired uncomfortably satiated with a smile on my face.