Her dad had helped her get ready all week, by phone. Rachael Pool planned a southern spread for her first Thanksgiving away from family in Arkansas: cornbread stuffing, Kentucky Derby pie, sweet potato casserole topped with pecans and cornflakes.

“Everything we’re making here, they’re making at home, except prettier,” she said.

It was just taking longer than Pool had thought.

Her guests were patient. She’d never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before. And most of them had never had one.

The Bates freshman decided to plan a meal for her friends, other Bates students, mostly freshman and all from other countries, after she’d been taken to an Indian festival, Diwali, in October. It’s a festival of lights. She got to dress up, eat.

“I sort of wanted to give something back, show them my festival,” Pool said.

Rakhshan Zahid thought she knew what to expect. She’d seen plenty of American television growing up in Pakistan.

“You watch the ‘Friends’ Thanksgiving special and things like that, so you know about Thanksgiving,” she said. But Zahid didn’t know about the history of it, the why, until she got here.

Several Bates College teaching assistants loaned the group a kitchen and dining room in a Bardwell Street home to use for the day.

Pool said she did some competitive cooking in high school. She was used to things being a little more orderly, and timed.

“I’m embarrassed it’s a mess, but I love it. If I can’t be home, at least I’m with good friends,” she said.

Then she called her dad for gravy tips.

Lt. Norm Tancrede and firefighter Don Lagrange were trying to figure out who to send to the St. Patty’s Day parade next March. The College Street firehouse in Lewiston was quiet. Earlier in the morning, the men had made up a special schedule for the day. Everyone got one hour to go home and eat with their families.

The schedule for the station’s honor guard is drawn out months in advance; which parades and festivals to attend, who to send. Lagrange, a member of the guard, has marched in the St. Patty’s Day parade in south Boston the last three years. He was trying to talk Tancrede into it next year.

“Everybody’s in a good mood, they have their families with them, their kids all dressed in green,” he said.

Lagrange has been a firefighter for 24 years, Tancrede for 17. The first few years it was rough working holidays, they said. But they got used to it, and so did their families.

Two years ago, there was a mill fire and house fire the day before Thanksgiving. Last year, a few alarm malfunctions and a chimney fire. This year, so far, nothing.

Victoria Hewison leaned toward her next customer and asked, “Turkey, ham or roast pork?”

“You’ve got a choice?” That surprised him. He picked the pork. The man shared that he’d just had a hip replaced and he’d been at home, alone. So he decided to dine at the Slamma in Auburn.

Victoria and her brother, Nicholas, are taking over the family restaurant soon. It’s opened its doors for the past four years to serve free Thanksgiving dinners, the labor and the food donated by locals.

In the first hour they served 85 people. One customer, his meal finished, got up in the back of the restaurant and began playing his electric guitar, softly.

Fred Grace leaned against a wall, sipping coffee, waiting for his cellphone to ring. He’d offered to drive people to the free dinner. He’d given four rides so far.

“Anything to help out on a holiday, that’s the spirit of it,” Grace, from Auburn, said.

That afternoon he would share Thanksgiving dinner with his two dogs. “They have some chicken gizzards for later – that’s their turkey,” he said.

Dinner had been planned for 3:30. But on Bardwell Street, well, Pool was now shooting for 6. The turkey was cooked. Three casseroles were left to bake. Several students loomed over a bowl of boiled potatoes, peeling away the cooked skin with their fingernails. It’s an Indian tradition to remove the skins after instead of before, Vaibhav Bajpai said. It was supposed to be easier that way, but it didn’t look easier.

Eventually, it would all be ready. They had plans for after dinner too: a game of Risk, a group favorite.

“It gets a bit intense sometimes,” said Zahid. “We all try to take over the world.”