My American Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving has come and gone. Food cooked and eaten with good friends, phone calls made back home to family and leftovers still in the fridge.
I got up around 8:30AM, finished up the stuffing and put the turkey in the oven. About 11 is when I started peeling, chopping, mixing, washing and cooking everything. The turkey was done to a beautiful golden brown around 1:15 PM and we ate around 3PM. I combined 2 recipes for the green beans and it was good. Now when I sent a menu list with my DH to share with his friends, they ALL voted DOWN the cranberry with orange sauce/relish, they said do NOT add the orange. Ok so I made one pan with the orange zest/juice and one without, guess which one was gone first? The one WITH the orange was wiped clean! MEN, ARRRRGGG!!!! I cooked the sweet potatoes plain, with only butter. I did end up adding a few rare pecans and marshmallows to one end and left one end just plain.
I did post my feast day menu but we ended up with a lot more food so here is what we ate:
a meat and cheese appetizer platter
Turkey, gravy and stuffing that I cooked
Roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy that J cooked
tossed green salad and home made ranch dressing that F made
sweet potatoes, sauteed green beans with roasted red bell peppers and pecans, fresh fruit salad, home made cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, assorted pickles & olive tray, pumpkin pie that I made
chocolate pie with whipped cream that J made.
Now if you are in the US/Canada and prepare this meal every year or in another part of the world and make a similar feast for a special occasion, you probably make your list and head off to the grocery store, fill your cart, get it home and start cooking. For us here, it's not quite that simple, throughout the year we see things in the stores that know we need for these meals so we buy it then and there or we won't have it. Pumpkin pie filling disappeared sometime in June, fresh and frozen cranberries disappeared about the same time but canned stuff was still there, sweet potatoes are hit and miss, the local ones are white and cheap, the imported ones are orange, good and EXPENSIVE, didn't see any pecans, canned or bulk, butterball turkeys are around once in a while so you grab them when you find them. As usual this is an expensive meal so ever wonder how much WE pay for this meal with all the fixings? Well I made a list, converted from local currency to US$ and here is the tally: (sorry I didn't convert the metric weights to US, I've learned to adapt)
USA imported Butterball Turkey - 4.5 KG $25.30
2 fresh "Indian Pumpkins" 1.85KG - $5.25
1 300G box frozen cranberries (imported from Australia) - $5.00
imported from USA Sweet potatoes - 3.7KG - $18.56
local sweet potatoes 3/4 KG - $0.64 (that is 64 CENTS)
a 30 oz can Libby's Pumpkin Pie filling (imported from USA)- $3.60
Swanson chicken broth (for stuffing) - $1.28
10 oz jar American Garden maraschino cherries for fruit salad - $2.20
230G can pears (imported from UK) - $2.26 (no local brand)
225G can "local brand" peaches - $0.66
1/4 KG "local" red grapes - $0.86
2 Fuji Apples - $0.53
2 Royal Gala Apples - $0.70
2 golden apples - $0.52
2 green apples - $0.72
3 "local" oranges - $0.61
1/4 KG Parmesan cheese (for Parmesan/peppercorn dressing) $6.16
3/4 KG green beans - $2.30
1 jar Vlassic Baby Sweets - $3.20
1 jar Vlassic Bread & Butter Pickles- $4.80
1 small jar Vlassic Dill spears - $4.80
1/2 KG Kalmata olives from the Deli - $3.40
1/4 KG Spanish black olives $1.64
1/2 KG Turkish Green olives $2.44
2 envelopes McCormick Turkey gravy mix (imported from USA) $2.66
This list doesn't include the meat/cheese tray ingredients, onion, celery, green/red bell peppers, mushrooms, milk, butter, flour, bread, roast beef, potatoes, tossed salad ingredients, mayonnaise, sour cream, whipped cream and other "little" things. The grand total is $99.69. That is just for the ingredients that I bought and used. Does that compare with what would be spend in the USA/Canada? We don't really look at the cost of SOME items because it's for OUR traditional holiday meal that makes us feel closer to home, DH and I kind of gagged on the price of the sweet potatoes, looked at each other and said "What the hell, it's for our one special meal"
So now I can start making a list for my Christmas day dinner that I will be preparing IN THE USA for my kids & grandkids!!!!!!!

Oh, I also gave the 3 full packs of cigarettes I had left in the house to J for thanksgiving, LOL, I do not need them anymore and didn't want them around the house. So there will be no more 2 or 3 puffs on a cigarette anymore. I am excited!