We celebrated in good style, we think. We were able to find reasonably priced turkey legs here as well as pumpkins, so we were able to make most of the traditional food. We had a small jamuan (party) at our house and invited neighbors. Most of them came by, which was really great. We even had a few extra, unexpected guests!
One of the families, who park there can next to ours so we see them a lot, brought almost 10 kids! The mom runs a day care, and many of the parents were not yet back from work, so they brought them all. I wish I had taken a picture of all the little shoes outside the door (everyone takes their shoes off when entering a home), but we really enjoyed it. In addition to that, one of the baby's dads came buy to get his child, and he ended up staying for over an hour. I was able to talk with him for a long time - and he didn't get bored of my broken but improving Malay!
Our nearby neighbors also came. One family has two kids who rank on the top of the list for cutest kids. The boy always makes something into a gun and pretends to shoot us, and the girl's smile and glasses are just adorable. The girl knows basic English (and is learning), so we try to practice a few words and phrases with her every time we see her - knowing her mother (in the back of her mind) wants us to help her. The boy mostly knows Chinese, but will respond to Malay. Usually the mother translates out Malay to Chinese for him (the mom does not speak much English).
The night was good. The flavors were different for them, but the hits were the marshmallows on top of the sweet potatoes and the strawberry pretzel salad. Thanks to our pressure cooker, we were able to cook things very fast (it cooked the sweet potatoes in 20 minutes, and the pumpkin in the same amount of time).
Culturally, people always bring a gift (usually food) when you go to someone's house for a meal. One family brought us jellies with red bean inside. The jelly is clear. We don't like the taste, but they sure look cool! We took them to work and shared them with our students the next day so that they didn't go to waste.
Tomorrow we are going to some friends house in the afternoon/evening to hang out. They are fellows orang putih (white people) so it will be nice to celebrate Thanksgiving with them and probably play some good ol' Dutch Blitz!