Thanksgiving Down Under

Thanksgiving is my all-time favorite holiday so I am always a bit bummed when I am not in the US for it. It is also hard to get into the spirit of things when it is hot, but I managed!
My cousin Luke and his American wife Ali invited us over to have dinner with them. We had to do it on Friday though because Thursday was the last sitting day of the year for Parliament so I was at work until 7pm.
My cousin said they would do the Turkey and a few other things and I took up the rest. Now there are a couple of issues when trying to do it right here:
One, not only do they not do pumpkin pie here (so no canned pumpkin) but it is also an extremely rare site to even come accross a pumpkin. Apparently they had a few at a local market around Halloween time, but they were about $30 each. I assume only Americans really missing home fork out this kind of dough. So I made a pumpkin pie out of a butternut squash. With the right seasoning it actually tasted quite close to the real thing! I now also know how to make one from scratch.
Two, Turkey is also rarely eaten and a mid-sized frozen turkey costs about $60 to $70. My Dad enjoyed taunting me by calling me each time he saw a cheap turkey. The lowest was a 12-pounder for $3.85 (which he bought).
Third, the heat. With no A/C in my apartment and blazing hot outside, I was very tempted to skip the whole ordeal so as not to add to the heat with the oven. But I figured a few hours of extra hot would be ok for the bliss of a Thanksgiving dinner. So I cooked up a storm!
I made stuffing, which turned out to be really good even though we just made up a recipe for it, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and corn bread. It was all delish!
After cooking, we piled everything in the car and drove to my cousin's house about 20 minutes away. I was so excited for dinner only to find out that my cousin had succumbed and only bought a turkey leg to cook up. They also bought some chicken too, which is so wrong! I was really disappointed not to have the full shebang. They also hadn't made gravy! I whipped some up because Thanksgiving dinner just doesn't exist without gravy.
So depsite my disappointment over the turkey, it was a good dinner and of course lots of leftovers!
I hope everyone had a fabulous Turkey day and weekend!