On a station that will take any reason they can find to throw a party, you have to know we're celebrating Thanksgiving. This is one of two major holidays that the galley goes all out for—the other being Arbor Day. No, it's Christmas, obviously. I'll keep saying this: food is morale. And while we're all probably the furthest away from family you can be, those touches of home are important for mental health and just enjoying the season.
(The Williams Field crew)
Part of getting into the season is getting the galley decked out in properly fancy attire. And by that I mean table cloths. Nice black or red ones with floral embroidery, but tablecloths nonetheless. And I guess some additional vacuuming. But holidays are only as much fun as you make them, and for some of the stewards and cooks, the traditional black Antarctica logo hats were replaced with some festive and some straight loony hats. Professionalism can be a bit lax on holidays; I think that's fair.
What also makes this a different meal is that it isn't so casual. You don't just blow in and take what you can get during the dinner rush. We're set up for three services over the afternoon, and you need to sign up for a time slot before the meal. Luckily I'm on the night schedule, so the midnight meal sign up is sparsely populated. As far as I can tell, this is to help the front and back of house keep the entire galley in working order and not have to feed the full 850 staff a fine meal in the first three minutes.
But separating out the service times also allows for something I wasn't aware of. See, for the past two weeks, front and back of house have been preparing for this meal. The kitchen has been prepping ingredients and setting up pans and containers so that once the cooking begins, they can take whatever they need and quickly send it into the ovens or steamers. The front of house has been setting up decorations, cleaning extra spaces, and stockpiling drinks, napkins, utensils, and everything else needed to actually eat the meal. A lot of work goes into serving this many people. But then the question comes: when do galley staff get to celebrate the holiday? Turns out we had set up a separate meal time at noon for the galley to be able to enjoy the meal just like anyone else. I had not realized this was a thing until I was hanging in the galley on my holiday day off (more on that later) and was told to come join. I think I missed a memo somewhere.
So that lets me talk about the most important part of the day: food. Now I'm sure some of you have large families. If you have to cook for more than seven people, it can be a bit of a challenge. Thus you might expect that some sacrifices would have to be made in terms of quality to feed 850 people. Nah. Everything was excellent and I don't imagine it would have been better at home. We had everything you would expect: stuffing, dinner rolls, green bean casserole, all kinds of veggies, real mashed potatoes, and of course the stars of the show, full roast turkey and glazed ham, carved right on the line. And also plenty of sugar with pumpkin, apple, and pecan pies. The real surprise to me was that wine was available, red and white. There was a whole table set up with wine glasses and someone distributing a (reasonable) glass of wine to anyone.
It didn't take too long for the first galley people with their plates to start shifting the nicely made up tables into one long table for as many of us to sit at as possible.
(The never ending table of food service.)
I heard more than a few people say that it was nice to be able to casually sit down with everyone for what might have been the first time. More often than not, we're all busy and our breaks are the only time we have to unwind. And front and back of house usually don't have overlapping breaks. So all of us together for a meal was a new experience.
While food is the main attraction, there were a few other Thanksgiving activities that were planned. We had our very own 5K Turkey Trot, with a track leading around the base, out and back again. The weather was cold(er) and with some slight snowfall, which is a rarity, so I commend any of the runners who even attempted it, let alone completed it. Other activities include weekly karaoke being moved back a day to coincide with the holiday, and many of the clubs and social groups getting together to do fun, Thanksgiving related activities.
Speaking of the holidays, most people had Saturday off, as well as the usual Sunday off. This is known as Town Hours and is the most common schedule: six days on with Sunday off. For the galley staff, we have to adjust. Everyone has to eat, so the kitchen can't close for a day off. Everyone in the galley has a certain day off in the week so that we mostly have a full staff every service. And so that they don't miss any holidays, they get floating holiday time for every time Town Hours has one off. So people in the galley were getting their Thanksgiving holiday throughout the month of November, and the same will be true for Christmas, New Years, and any other federally recognized holidays. For me, since I've been working at Williams Field of late and my schedule is a bit odd, I get normal Town Hours, so I was able to enjoy most of the Thanksgiving activities.
The holiday has been something that I think everyone was looking forward to, and even now that it's passed, the good will that it brought us isn't likely to fade for a while. Being away from home is tough for many of us, so coming together like this and feeling like a part of a community, even in a small way, is comforting. And we all have things to be thankful for. Myself? I'm thankful for Starlink Internet. And I mean that mostly seriously (mostly...). McMurdo in the digital age like it let's me share these stories with all of you. And more importantly, it lets me take part in my family's weekly Zoom call and stay connected with my parents and brother. That means a lot to me, and without that family connection, I think life would have been much harder down here.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
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