Of the group, my husband Ray and I had visited the U.S. the most recently on a home leave trip, so we were elected to carry back those items necessary for a Thanksgiving feast, but impossible to find in France: canned cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie filling, turkey napkins, and crepe decorations in autumn colors.  

Jan Johnson took on the task of acquiring two turkeys for the big day. Strangely enough, French supermarkets don't stock hundreds of frozen butterballs on their shelves during the weeks before Thanksgiving--or ever. Jan called on her local butcher with explicit instructions in French for what she needed: two giant turkeys, by French standards, with no head, no feet, and already dead--pas de tête, pas de pied, déja mort.  

We arrived early that Saturday morning to help with the preparation. We walked in the front door and heard giggling from the kitchen. Jan yelled out, "Diane, get your camera!  They're never going to believe this back home, that they delivered them like this."  

I looked down at the floor and saw the two dead, mostly plucked turkeys--shot that morning--lying in cardboard boxes. "You hold one up while I take the picture," I said.  

Jan picked up one of the turkeys, saying, "Why did he leave the necks on? I thought when I told him I didn't want the heads that he would take the necks off, too.  I'll get Bob to cut them off."  

"Bonjour, Diane, so nice to see you again." Karen, another American wife, entered the kitchen, kissing me on both cheeks in the French fashion. "Bonjour, Jan. I see you have your hands full." 

Karen bent down to kiss Jan, who squatted with the turkey, holding it up by its legs, its bloody neck swinging between her legs. "You're taking a picture? Lovely."  

I snapped the photo, and Jan called for Bob to come in.  

"Which one should I take?" Karen asked. "It doesn't matter," Jan said. "They're both so big that whichever one is left, I'll have to use both hands to jam it into the oven. How can a country that places so much importance on food use such tiny ovens?" 

Bob, still in his nightshirt, shuffled in from the living area, asking, "What's up?"  

"Can you cut these necks off for us?" Jan asked.  

He looked at Jan holding the turkey and laughed, "Those things are disgusting!  Hand me the knife. I'll give Ray a special 'bonjour' this morning." 

Bob whacked off the necks, snorting as he held one up, its long, bony shaft of flesh accented by two flaps of loose skin on one end. He clutched the turkey neck in front of his jeans, between his legs, and pushed the kitchen door open, singing, "Ray, I got a special treat for you…"   

We rolled our eyes at the two grown men yucking it up in the next room.  

"I need to get going and put this guy in the oven," Karen said. "What time are we eating? 4:00 ?"  

"That's the plan," Jan said.  

"Okay, see you then. Au revoir!" Karen hefted the remaining cardboard box and turkey into her arms and left.  

Jan pulled out some cereal for breakfast, stepping around the forlorn turkey on the floor. Taking a look around her undersized kitchen, she said, "I'll be so glad to be home next year for Thanksgiving. I want to be with my family. I want the kids to know a Thanksgiving with family."  

"I know what you mean," I replied, "but at the same time, it's been fun having these misfit Thanksgivings in France. Who all's coming today?"  

"It's you and Ray, Bob and me, our kids, Karen and Tom and their four, Karen's parents who are visiting from the U.S., and another couple that we met at church, Jim and Deborah, and their three kids."  

"What a bunch. No wonder we need two turkeys. Karen's parents, aren't they the ones who were missionaries in the Middle East?"  

"Yes, they're the ones. They hauled their kids all over the Middle East until it wasn't safe for Americans anymore. They're retired now, living in Florida. They seem pretty nice."  

We cleaned up the breakfast dishes and started cooking for today's crowd of nineteen in this family kitchen far from home.  

* * *  

The late afternoon sunset dimmed the living/dining area of the Johnson's suburban French home. Five tables stood decorated with crepe turkeys and gold, brown, and orange linens. One by one, the women brought the dishes in from the kitchen, placing them on the long table set aside for the food. Bob and Ray carved the turkeys in the kitchen, separating white from dark. The platters of turkey dominated the buffet, surrounded by mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, a green bean casserole, and stuffing--a feast not easy to create in a land of no Thanksgiving.  

Before dinner, we stood in a circle around the room, holding hands. Karen's father, the former missionary, said grace. During the prayer, I squeezed Ray's hand, sending signals when we were supposed to be listening to the reverent words with our eyes shut. Bob, on Ray's other side, squeezed his other hand, continuing their horseplay from that morning.  

When the prayer broke, the three of us dropped our hands and started talking, ready to move toward the food. However, Karen and her mother started singing a song of thanks to God, and the rest of the group joined in, still holding hands.  Bob, Ray, and I linked back up to the circle, with mute smiles, the only ones who didn't know the words to what must have been a fairly well known Thanksgiving hymn at the local English-speaking church.  

During dinner, Ray and I shared a table with Jim and Deborah, Bob, and Karen's father. We gobbled mouthfuls of the American cuisine, relishing then regretting the stuffed feeling after about ten minutes. Ray asked Jim, a software designer, what brought him to France.  

"I was convicted by God to evangelize the French," he replied.  

"Uh, okay," Ray said, not knowing what else to add. Bob and I exchanged raised eyebrows for a split second while Karen's father nodded in approval. I wondered to myself if the French wanted to be evangelized.  

Jim went on to explain that he moved his family to Paris two years ago, after he had been convicted, where they lived in an apartment of a friend of the church for six months while he looked for work. God blessed them when he was offered a position in a start-up. The start-up company moved him to Toulouse, where we lived, after his acceptance. Unfortunately, the company had recently gone bankrupt, which meant he was searching for work again.  

His story set off alarm bells in my head, questions about how he could legally be in France. We had all undergone the lengthy procedure for obtaining French work visas. I wanted to ask, "You mean you were in the country illegally while you looked for work?" I was sure his company had fixed his papers up once they started paying him but, "If you were laid off, I think that means you have to go home now--you're here illegally again." Of course I didn't say these things. It was none of my business and who needs heavy accusations on Thanksgiving Day?  

But Jim was confident, not worried about the fact that he had no money, no job, and that his family was living illegally in a foreign country.   

"God will take care of it." His wife Deborah's face said otherwise. As he talked, I noticed her creased forehead and worried eyes. It seemed she carried the weight of her husband's decision to evangelize France.  

After dinner, Jan and Karen served the pumpkin pies. Even though we were stuffed from dinner, the spicy sweetness of the pumpkin danced on our tongues; "mmm's" filled the room as we closed our eyes to this remembered taste of home.  

Bob showed us his new toy while we ate pie on the living room couch--satellite TV with over 100 channels, many of them in English! September 11th had necessitated his subscription, Bob deciding that they needed a way to find out what was going on in the world. Since it was a Thanksgiving celebration, we felt like we should be watching football. It wasn't really Thanksgiving, though, but the Saturday after, and everyone in the U.S. was still asleep, so there wouldn't be any games broadcast at this hour.   

We zapped the remote until we found the all-comedy-all-the-time channel. Old Saturday Night Live reruns were playing, and the three of us stopped talking and soaked in the unexpected treat of American comedy. After three years of nothing but French television, the laughs and gags wrapped around us like a warm blanket. We could understand French broadcasts by now, but still had to strain for the translation, and comedy was the worst--we might understand the words but still  not get the joke.  

We sat on the couch entranced, laughing hysterically at skits that weren't that funny but seemed like the finest comedy ever written. The "homophobe" came on, Norm McDonald playing a Weekend Update special commentator. We giggled as the homophobe repeatedly accused the news anchor of "getting too close". We didn't notice the coughs and low grumbling behind us in the room.  

Finally, Jim spoke up. "Do you think maybe you could change the channel to something less offensive, something more appropriate for the children?"  

"Huh?" was Bob's knee-jerk response, turning around, incredulous. Ray and I looked around slowly to see no kids in the room, but many stern missionary glares in our direction.   

"Okay, sure," Bob said, turning back to the television, surfing with the remote until he hit CNN, still broadcasting nothing but September 11th news, replaying the footage of the towers crumbling--something more appropriate for the children.   

The conversations in the room resumed. We took another bite of pumpkin pie, watched the all-terror-all-the-time channel, and kept our mouths shut. In another hour, the guests started leaving. We rose from the couch and said, "It was very nice to meet you," doing the kiss-on-both-cheeks routine. We exchanged email addresses--the polite thing to do these days--and talked about how we'd have to get together again when we were starved for American companionship.  

When everyone had left but Ray and me, we flopped back onto the couch with Bob and Jan.  Their two daughters joined us, and we flipped the television back to Saturday Night Live. We all relaxed into American laughter, warm in the embrace of our surrogate family, the kids pretending like they got the jokes.  

I am a freelance writer living on a farm in South Dakota that my husband inherited from his grandfather. We are early retirees (escapees) from the electronics industry. 

I dedicate most of my time to writing a memoir of the three years that we spent living and working in Toulouse, France.  The rest of the time, I cook, I play the piano, and I quilt--a hobby I've taken up since moving to South Dakota one year ago.

E-mail Diane at di@ivoryquill.net