House-Stuffed Italian Thanksgiving

Last night was our bug Thanksgiving dinner.  We invited all of our students to the Bible School for a real American Thanksgiving and they were eager to accept.  On Friday we had almost 70 people signed up to come. In all I think we had about 80 people here last night.  It was tricky figuring out a way to find space for everyone, but the guys did a great job clearing out  space in our classroom.  We were able to fit enough tables and chairs for everyone to have a seat.  Then, under the direction of Jessica - our resident artist - we decorated the classroom and it looked great.  The classroom normally has a very cold feel to it, white walls, fluorescent lights and tile floors, but it ended up looking really fun and welcoming. We had brown paper-bag table cloths, festive Thanksgiving centerpieces, and a huge "Happy Thanksgiving" sign.  Jessica had the idea to spread colorful leaves (both dried leaves and paper leaves) on the tables and it looked so great.  Then there was the food... We started cooking on Thursday night, cooked all afternoon on Friday and then got up on Saturday morning and cooked all day.

On the menu:
2 turkeys, 1 ham and cranberry glaze, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, vegetable casserole, corn casserole, peas, mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed berry Jello salad, cranberry sauce, rolls, clam dip, cheese ball, mixed veggies with dip, wassail and iced tea
and dessert:
2 pecan pies, 4 pumpkin pies, 1 chocolate pie, 2 chocolate chip pies, apple crisp - all with homemade whipped cream

Debbie did an amazing job of planning all the food and working out the timing.  Using three kitchens, with three ovens over three days we were able to make enough food for 80 people (and at least three days of leftovers).
The party started at 7:30 and even though Italians are supposed to be late people started getting here about 10 minutes early.  We were still trying to carve the turkeys and get all the food out on the tables (each with little labels so that people knew what everything was) as more and more people came in.  I kept squeezing my way through the crowd back and forth through the kitchen at it grew denser and denser.  Two of my individual students came and there were quite a few people from our 9 o-clock beginner class.  Before we ate we gave a short explanation of Thanksgiving.  Jessica had written a short story describing the meaning of Thanksgiving complete with Pilgrims, Indians and references to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and football.  I read it in my best teacher voice. After that David explained that there would be two lines around the buffet table and everyone literally laughed and said 'Italians don't make lines'.  And they didn't!  People got plates and just worked their way around the table, everyone going every which way and bumping into each other.  It was fabulous.
The final verdict is that Italians love Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving food.  People really seemed to have a great time and they really loved the food. I asked people which was their favorite and the top answers were the turkey, the sweet potato casserole, and the corn casserole.  (It's interesting trying to explain a 'casserole' to non-native English speakers by the way.)  People said the flavors are all very different and unusual, but they really enjoyed it.  In Italian, squash and pumpkins are both called 'zucca' and I had to explain that pumpkin pie was made with the big orange kind and that we have different names for all the different kinds.  They really seemed to like it though.  In general, American desserts are a lot sweeter than Italian desserts and there's really nothing here that resembles pie.  The people I talked to liked the pumpkin pie and the chocolate pie.  The pecan pie was really interesting to them because pecans were another food they had never had before.  Describing nuts is surprisingly difficult.  Pecan pie is one of my favorites and the pecan pie was great, but I'm not sure how many Italians really like that much sugar.
At some point during the night I made the mistake of looking in the kitchen to see the giant mound of dishes waiting for us.  Maybe in some form of self-preservation it did not occur to me until that moment that we would have to wash all of the dishes used by the 80 people in the house.  In the end I think the last group left here after midnight and we finished cleaning at about 1:30.  It was an amazing night and I know everyone had a great time and really appreciated what we did.  Also, people brought donated food for the church and we took bags and bags full to church this morning.