In Belgium, it is a bit different. For students, this time of year is marked by the looming exams. There are two exam periods in Belgium, one right before Christmas break, and the other right before summer vacation. These exams are in each class and tests the students cumulative knowledge of the course. For the students, this is quite a stressful time and everyone is studying.
For me, I have been mostly interested in the holiday I was missing. Of course Belgium does not celebrate Thanksgiving, so Thursday came as any normal day. I drug myself to school, and spread my own little holiday cheer by wishing many people a happy Thanksgiving. I did have a wonderful surprise that evening when I received a package from my family that contained many awesome things! This year my Thanksgiving meal included peanut butter, chocolate covered pretzels and chocolate covered raisins! (very healthy!)
Wanting to share this holiday with my host family, I suggested we have our own version of a Thanksgiving meal on Saturday when we had more time to prepare a larger meal. They liked the idea and so we set about trying to find the things we would need. It's surprisingly difficult to find some of the 'necessities' of Thanksgiving. A turkey was quite difficult to find. In Belgium they eat turkey during Christmas, and during this time of year there really isn't any smaller ones being sold.
But we did end up bringing together quite a wonderful Thanksgiving meal and invited Kaela and her host family over to enjoy the meal.
Even spending this holiday away from my home and family it was still a nice time of year and I was once again reminded of how much I truly have to be thankful for.
Quite a few things are coming up, tomorrow is the first of December, a busy time of year for everyone! And Christmas vacation is not too far away!
You were missed at Thanksgiving. Your mom was telling us all about your feast. It was nice to hear you were able to share some of the US with your host family.
ReplyDelete