Back at home, you're all probably settling down to dinners right about now; for us, we celebrated Thanksgiving last night. It's 9:30 Friday morning and I'm sitting outside in the sun and the warmth, drinking my hot cocoa and thinking about everyone back home. I just finished skyping with my household as a beautiful, rowdy whole: mom and dad, brother, grandma and grandpa, aunt kathy, andrew berry, the whole lot of applegates, aunt linda and uncle gino and olivia, ted, and assorted neighbors and cats. I miss you all so much. I have to admit - as we were saying our goodbyes, there were a few tears in my eyes.
Jen was right; it's difficult explaining to people from other countries just what Thanksgiving is all about. To them, it's just another excuse for Americans to stuff their faces. Admittedly, that's part of it. But trying to explain to our new friends why we missed our families so much yesterday, and how important it was that we all get together for a big dinner last night, was hard to do. I tried to put into words the beauty of having everyone come together, driving up out of the cold and bursting through the door with plates of pies and bowls of salads; the sweetness of waking up that morning in the warm, clean house that already smells like pumpkin and pecan pies, surrounded by your nearest and dearest. I tried to explain how no, nothing much HAPPENS - not unless you count braving the weather outside to throw around a football or frisbee or wrestle in the fallen leaves, or teaching your relatives new games, or sitting around for hours with slice after slice of pie and a big mug of coffee, talking about everything under the sun. They could, at least, get the joy of having everyone you most love gathered around one swollen table, all together for one giant feast - that, I think, is a universal, timeless joy.
So yesterday Jen and I planned and cooked and set tables and drew up name cards and tried to make everything perfect. We wanted to capture the feel and taste and sounds of home. Everyone at the hostel scrambled around and tried to help. There was a trio peeling potatoes in a line in the communal kitchen; a pair slicing apples for the pies; Jamie helping pick pieces of onion and garlic off the floor when the turkey literally shot out of the oven after only thirty minutes inside of it (shhh - we stuffed it back into its cozy roasting pan, shoved it back into the oven, and it tasted fine, honestly.) Everything seemed different though (Jony was downstairs making empanadas, Stefan was whining about things between "too American," and everyone kept asking if they should bring vodka or rum, like we were all going to get drunk at dinner) and Jen and I worried that Thanksgiving would be far, far too different than how we wanted it to be.
But dinner was finished (everything, remarkably, done on time and smelling delicious), and everyone (twelve of us) crowded around the table, and I read a Thanksgiving poem, and we went around the table giving thanks, and somehow it all came together. Sitting there, in Jack's warm apartment that smelled like sage and onion and turkey and empanadas and apfel strudel, with our new friends grinning widely all around us, it really felt like Thanksgiving. I missed my family and friends back home - all of you - with a tear-drawing vengeance, but being here was remarkable as well.
There's something about turkeys - even 8 lb, $50, dropped on the floor ones - that just brings people together, I guess.
But as Thanksgiving draws to a close for everyone back home, I just want you all to know that I'm so grateful to have you in my life, even when you're so far away from me. I miss you incredibly, and I love you so much. Eat some leftovers for me - we sure as heck don't have any.
I love you,
Liz
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