24 November 2016 Happy Thanksgiving!

The American Thanksgiving holiday is as much a big deal here at McMurdo Station as it is throughout the USA. Instead of celebrating on the fourth Thursday of November, USAP(abbreviation) United States Antarctic Program participants observe the holiday on the fourth Saturday. The costs of transporting people all the way down here and maintaining a high standard of living in such a formidable environment are necessarily high, so the USAP(abbreviation) United States Antarctic Program work week is 54 hours - 6 days at 9 hours a day. Participants get Sundays off but most of the regular holidays are not observed, Thanksgiving and Christmas being two of the exceptions. A Saturday holiday is cause for a huge celebration and the station population goes all-out for this event.

The day's activities begin with the traditional "Turkey Trot," a grueling 5km/3.1m footrace through the steep, volcanic gravel-covered avenues of McMurdo Station. Over 200 people ran the race, many of them in costume. In fact, there is even a race, held the evening before, for people who would be working on the actual holiday. The "Turducken 5k" had 50 participants. The main event is the feast itself. With ~900 people on Station at the moment (and more coming in from nearby field camps for the occasion), the Dining Staff needed to feed people in shifts of 300. For days leading up to the feast, Dining Staff and volunteers worked overtime to bake pies, prepare soups and stuffings, and cook 800lbs/360kg of turkey! Our team - dressed in our relative finest clothing - partook in an early meal, complete with decorations and table clothes. Afterwards, we retired to a lounge to digest while watching episodes of the classic 1950s underwater adventure series "Sea Hunt." In the evening, many of the gathering spaces were occupied by live music performances and activities, including "Freezing Man," a tongue-in-cheek mini-nod to the famous "Burning Man" arts festival.

Though I am sorry not to be with family and friends back home during this holiday, everyone here was in the same situation and truly made the most of it, displaying a very strong sense of community. It's certainly a Thanksgiving I will never forget!