Candelight

We dined  by candlelight last night for the first time in our new house. I used my wedding present candle holders from Angela and Curran and Laura.
There were 29 of us for dinner. Well, three of us were babies, but Sami and his friend Yusef put away some turkey! Habib cooked 2 turkeys, and I made a huge pot of mashed potatoes, and a sweet potato casserole and a corn one, as well as green beans and a big Cesar salad. Majda brought seafood bastilla which went very quickly. Other friends brought various desserts to round out the pumpkin pies Leila had made, and the 11 apple variety crisp that I made*.
As usual, the bulk of our guests were immigrants and foreigners. Two of my students even came, and had  a great time. One is Iranian and the other Iraqi, and quite good friends. Since many of our other guests were Arabic speakers, and Majda's husband is Iranian, everyone got to speak their language- (except no Spanish for me!). We had Moroccans, Tunisians, an American-Egyptian, an Iraqi, Iranians, a Colombian, and a Native American here.
I talked despite my almost non-existent voice (from a cold)**. About the time we had dinner I was overcome by exhaustion, but powered through. We did a big buffet table in the kitchen, stretched our new dining table to its fullest, and set up another table in the office/living room. Habib threw together a couple of benches for our old Ikea mattresses- (the kids have claimed them and fight over them now). I took Sami up to bed after everyone left, and Habib did all the dishes (the plates were easy- paper! I can't find all my china dishes yet.) Today I've done practically nothing- managed a turkey soup for dinner.
Habib said it was the best party we've had- and we like to party!
*Whilst in the store the other day, Leila said, "An apple is an apple," so I asked her to get one of each apple and we ended up with 11 which we taste tested on Wednesday night. She learned that an apple is not just an apple. Some are sweeter and others juicier.
**Wednesday morning I dragged into class late and wrote on the board: "Good morning. I made it. But my voice didn't!" My students were very understanding.