Saturday, November 25, 2000

Thanksgiving

There were supposed to have been seventy flights to the South Pole by this point in the season. So far, mainly due to weather either here or at McMurdo, we have only had thirty-five. Most holidays at the South Pole that fall on a weekday are moved to the weekend so that the much-needed flights can continue through the week. Thanksgiving is no exception. Thursday was a normal working day here, and I didn't even realize that it had been Thanksgiving until the day after. Our festivities were planned for today, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Holidays are always a big deal for Poleys, and preparations for the Thanksgiving feast were started early in the week. Just about everybody helped to get ready. Wednesday night we had a potato peeling party and Friday there was a pie-baking party. And on the big day, everyone helped to get things set up for the feast and party.

I was awakened early in the afternoon Saturday by a commotion in the room across the hall (I still work nights and sleep during the day). I hopped out of bed, got dressed and discovered that my neighbors were already throwing a Thanksgiving party of their own in their room. There were already about ten people squeezed into the tiny room and they invited me to join them. Don and Dianne had the room all decked out with tinsel and Christmas lights. The walls were tiled with beautiful pictures of far-off warm places. It was very cozy. I resolved to make my room have a similar feel. The hosts served drinks and hors d'oeuvres and we had a great time. At one point, we crammed fifteen people in the room for a picture. The inviting holiday milieu and friendly sociability definitely made it feel like Thanksgiving.

Since there are currently over two hundred people living here and the dining facility was designed for eighteen, the Thanksgiving meal had to be conducted in three seatings. I signed up for the third at 7:00 PM Volunteers helped out to serve wine, clean up between meals, wait on tables, and wash dishes. I assisted in cleaning up after the first seating. It was a very efficient process to change out the white tablecloths and napkins and re-set the table as we had plenty of help. More than enough people pitched in and we had a great time doing it.

While the second group was eating, a few of us who were to eat last gathered in the met office to chat and listen to the obligatory Thanksgiving song, Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant." We then headed up to the Upper Galley, just above the Galley where the dinner would be, for hors d'oeuvres.

The room was completely packed, but there was plenty of food and wine for the group as we waited for the tables to be re-set once again. The third seating is always the most popular, mainly because there is no rush to leave after the meal so the next group can eat, and people can sit around for hours.

Now in a wholly blithe and festive mood, the crowd headed down the stairs into the beautiful candle-lit room below for our Thanksgiving feast.

And a feast it was. All of the preparations paid off and the cooks, like always, did not disappoint. All of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes were present and some extras on top of that. Not only was there roast turkey, but smoked and deep fried as well to choose from; the cooks had prepared over twenty turkeys in all, and there was still more than enough to eat for the third group through the line. There was fresh salad made from lettuce grown in the greenhouse, several kinds of fresh-baked bread, cranberry sauce, stuffing, sesame-glazed pumpkin, various vegetables, and real mashed potatoes and gravy. The potatoes and gravy were hands down the best I have ever tasted.

And then there were pies. The pie-baking party had produced over seventy in all. Servers came around with pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies followed by whipped cream.

The revelry did not end with Thanksgiving dinner. After the last group finished, the tables were rearranged and half the Galley was turned into a dance floor. Every public room under the dome was now a party room and the station's population was distributed between the pool room, the movie lounge, the bar, the lower Galley dance floor, and the Upper Galley, where people played and sang music late into the night, and the revel even continued into Sunday.

And how could any Thanksgiving celebration be complete without football? The plane that was to bring us Thursday's games on Friday was canceled. However, the first annual "Sundog Bowl" was held as scheduled. The temperatures Sunday were a mild seventeen degrees below zero as the two teams of Poleys faced off on the makeshift outdoor field. Unfortunately, I slept through the whole thing.

It truly was a wonderful holiday, and the festivities certainly made Thanksgiving feel a little more like home in a place so far away. The events were well-planned and great fun, but it was the people that made it all possible. I cannot sufficiently describe the dedication the people here put into everything they do. There is such a sense of community. Everyone seems to go out of his or her way to make this remotest and most inhospitable place on Earth to be somehow beyond just livable and even beyond comfortable. They make it possible to live life as full as it is lived anywhere else on Earth. And for that I am thankful. Christmas promises to be even better.