Thanksgiving dinner

At the pole, Thanksgiving dinner is held on Saturday giving just about everyone a two day weekend. There are a few folks who have to stay on duty (once we have water circulating in the drill camp, it's staffed 24/7), but folks rotate with them to make sure that they get dinner too.

Preparation starts in earnest on the Thursday before the dinner. I'm sure that the chef and his crew started preparation well in advance of that, but this is when the volunteer help starts kicking in. I volunteered to peel potatoes. There are about 250 people on station, so that's a lot of potatoes. Fortunately, the chef decided that we would leave the skins on the potatoes (red skinned) and they would just mash them up. All we had to do was dice them up. Just for fun, they threw in some peppers to chop up as well. There were probably sixteen of us, or thereabouts, so it went fast - about half an hour. We escaped with all fingers attached and no lost time injuries. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs in close quarters with knives.

The galley isn't large enough to hold the entire station population, so the dinner itself is actually held in three seatings of 90 minutes each. Half an hour before dinner, hors d'oeuvres and cocktails are served, and some of the more musically inclined polies provide live entertainment. The galley itself was reconfigured for the meal. The tables were rearranged, the windows were shaded, candles were put on the tables, and on the big screen monitors there was a fireplace video. It was pretty nice.

Since it's a big holiday, a lot of people dress up. Most of the time, people are walking around the station in their carharts or snow pants, and boots. It's almost a little weird to see people in nice clothes. The mood is festive. Everyone seemed more relaxed than normal, and everyone is ready for some fun. It's difficult being away from friends and family during the holidays, but if you have to be away, this is a good group to be with.

The food was excellent. We had roasted and deep fried turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, a green bean salad, and a vegetable salad. A group of volunteer wine stewards made sure that everyone had plenty of wine and/or water. For desert we had our choices of pie: pumpkin, pecan, or chocolate silk. These had been prepared the night before by another group of volunteers. They did a pretty good job as far as I could tell.

I was in the first seating, and before long we had to wind down so the next group could get started. The party moved to other parts of the station. The louges filled up, summer camp got rocking, and eventually the galley was converted to a dance hall.

For my part, early on I took a trip out to the old dome which will be torn down in the next couple of weeks. This was the the station which was finished in 1974. The dome acted as a cover for what were essentially a group of cargo containers that comprised the old station. The original design life was 15 years, so it's done pretty well.

Afterwards, I joined the festivities, at least for a little while. For me that meant talking with a few of the folks around the station. It's interesting hearing about some of the different holiday traditions around different parts of the world. By and large, they seem similar. Most of the variations are around the type of food and timing. In many countries, meals are served at much later times, and the celebration dates may be shifted by a few days. But it all seems to follow the same basic theme - good food, good company.

Can't go wrong with that, I guess.