AH! Thanksgiving!!

Well, here it is again. Somebody started this harvest festival and it is still going on. I would bet it was some mighty hunter who shot a poor unsuspecting gobbler, took it home and presented it to the wife. The dutiful wife then proceeded to dress it (in cute little pants, and a hat with a buckle no doubt) and cook it.

Today, it is a traditional North American Holiday in the U.S. whose origins are still somewhat of a mystery, depending on whose rendition you read.

I think it was the male faction that decreed a feast of enormous proportions be placed on the breadwinner's table. Different areas serve different 'traditional' foods, all as a sort of harvest festival, being thankful for a bountiful harvest.

I think it is mostly promoted by the male of the species as a day on which it is customary to stuff oneself and then retire to the 'tube' to watch sports while the little woman (or women as the case may be ) clean up the mess that took them several days to make in the kitchen.

I hate the thought of all the cooking of special treats and trying to outdo the previous year's food orgy.

However, I get a lot of satisfaction from being able to bring a glorious meal to the table. Once the cooking is done, I am ready to 'pig out' provided I haven't done so much tasting that I have become full! And it is wonderful to bask in the glow of compliments on my accomplishment. It makes the several days of work worth it. I can then look forward to the next feast, while serving a variety of turkey delights to the groans of 'not turkey AGAIN!' for the next week.

It wouldn't be so bad if people would just clean the platter of turkey while it was still hot.

So this Thanksgiving, enjoy your merry making and giving of thanks while you eat the damned turkey!!

Well, as a perpetual "stray" I almost never have the option of turkey dinner with loving family and the Cowboys game.

But this year I feel very forunate to be going where I went last year.

Some bookstore owners in Cancun that sell my books invited me to their home. Every year they do a ham and turkey and invite anybody in the foreign community who wants to come. People bring food.
(I'm going to get some sinful desserts from this Chinese restauarant/upscale French patisserie with Cordon-bleu trained pastry chef...I know, I know... this isn't the real world, it's Mexico. The cool thing is, everything will be open because Nov 27 means nothing here.)

It might song odd to people used to multi-generational get-togethers, that I would be comfortable and feel fortunate to be in a group of strangers.
But strangers are only strangers until you get to know them. Expatriates are used to moving their roots and I felt very much at home with the highly international crowd there last year. (And I usually don't even LIKE scuba instructors and time share sales people) Also the owner and her sister are very cool people I hit it off with immediately a couple of years ago.

This year, of course, I'll know more of the folks. But that's beside the point. It's not like auld lang syne, more like travelers at an inn... come together by circumstance and enjoying the company. Great bunch. I'm really lookng forward to it.

And thankful to have the opportunity. Thanksgiving is always a little weird for American abroad. To me it's the greatest holiday--no religous claptrap, not presents and stress---just get with people you love, eat and be grateful to have the abilityt to love and have something to eat.

But by the same same time, it's so American-centric it's often hard for some to replace the family feel in a place where nobody around them celebrates and the society, even climate isn't in keeping with traditions.

I've spent Thanksgiving by myself. Once I spent the day eating goat meat stew in a restaurant in the Tijuana hills with this dancer I was going with at the time. Well, okay, stripper. Well, okay, you want to get technical, prostitute. Had a nice time, though. She was very impressed by the concept of the day and the idea of a day to give thanks for things. Which, she decided, was really gratefulness for life itself.

I spent Thanksgiving in prison, right after my fortieth birthday. And you know what was funny. I was REALLY, REALLY thankful, more intensely than any other T Day I can remember, because I was out of the stinking jail system and up in the relative comfort, safety, and relaxed atmosphere of the state system.

So you never know.

Thing is, we get conned into thinking it's all about food.

It's not about having a full stomach, it's about having a full heart.

And there is nothing you can buy or cook or turn on that will do that for you.

And people like me, who live on the outskirts of the human family, are all the more thankful for times when there is good food and drink, good company, and good thoughts about what's really important in the universe and how we should feel about it for a moment or two.

We don't do much of anything on Thanksgiving and I like it that way. I have never liked holidays so during my newspaper years I always volunteered to work on them. I do enjoy Lin's "travelers at an inn" type of events but hate to sit around listening to people talk about their kids and grandchildren. The minute grandchildren are mentioned I look for a reason to sneak away.
So today Jackie baked a cherry pie. That's it. We won't have to eat turkey leftovers for the next few days. I will get to spend the day working like any other day. The few holidays I remember with pleasure were spent in the Army, another version of "travelers at an inn."

I'm a bit like Lin and a bit like Dick for the past seven years.
Living outside the USA means "no traditional American thanksgiving" dinner. Over here, instead of finding turkey in the store, we find Goose, and I'm not that fond of Goose. It always triggers the quip, "Antlers in the treetop so who goosed the moose?"

Although I do like turkey and I do have fond memories of thanksgiving of days past where mom did the cooking, it somehow lost its charm. Having said that, given the opportunity to sit down to a big turkey dinner with friends, I would pig out.

I wish all of you a very happy and savory thanksgiving feast.

Dick,

Tell them to shut up and you will speak of your own kids and grandchildren.

Funny this came up--religion and politics are out as are offspring, operations, only safe subject must be the weather.

It is lousy here today.

At least you won't have any brocolli today--neither wil I

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Alice,
Have a slice of turkey for me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thank you! We hit the jackpot One of our dinner guests--a Boeing Engineer heard our tale of woe about our plug in and tah dah he is hooking us up as I type this.

Thank God for friends that are Boeing Engineers!

Lin, I haven't always agreed with your views, but this sentence is fantastic:

"It's not about having a full stomach, it's about having a full heart."

I liked Lin's comment also, Brenda.

We had a great day. My family sent me out of the kitchen, but at times couldn't find utensils etc., so I'd help them out.

We had 28 people and everyone had a good time. Two grandkids had marched with the high school band in the Chicago Thanksgiving Day Parade and were excited about sharing their experiences in the "big city."

Four of them sat for hours and talked and it was fun to watch them.

Everyone got along great. My autistic grandson spent the day with all of us which is progress as he usually would go off by himself to read. He does get repetitive, but as long as you are patient hearing about the same movie a few times, it is all right. And he sure has historical events of World War II down.

The weather was cold and dreary, which in some ways was good, as on good days the sun pours into the house and makes it difficult to spend any time in the kitchen.

It was a good day.

Carol

I hope everyone had a peaceful Thanksgiving day with those you care about!

I spent the day with my two kids, watching the parade, movies, preparing treats all day, a little wood splitting and stacking with my son, and great conversation during our feast, which lasted an hour and a half! After we rolled ourselves away from the table, they even helped me clean up. It was a fantastic day!

Alice, I had a feeling that you were going to find that someone who could take care of your dilemma for a lot less than quoted. But to find him at your dinner table! What a blessing!

Well, Lin is so right. I did the big dinner with lots of extra goodies and invited two friends to join the two of us. There was so much laughter that everyone was exhausted by the end. The eight hours went by like blinking an eye.

We all chattered like magpies the whole time. I enjoy doing this sort of thing, but do it so rarely anymore that it is a real treat when it happens. I am lame this morning, but am looking forward to doing it again. I must be a glutton for punishment and pumpkin pie, But we all had a relaxed and wonderful day!

Any holiday where you get to enjoy your favorite foods without guilt gets my vote.

My brother and I remembered our family Thanksgivings. We always had plenty of outside friends and strays--the more, the merrier. My mom had this thing about recreating the whole Pilgrim-Native American thing. She even made bonnets for the women to wear. One of my favorite pictures is of my brother in one of Mom's cabbage-rose flower-printed bonnets. What a goof.