What I Love The Most About Thanksgiving Day
As long as I can remember, Thanksgiving has been a bit of an alternative holiday for me.
In many ways, I am extremely traditional and custom-oriented. Just come to our home any time around Christmas and you might think you’ve stepped into a scene from Charles Dickens.
But there is something about the Thanksgiving holiday that makes me feel like celebrating something a little bit beyond. Something more than the traditional family, the turkey and some good ole American football.
When I lived in New York, we would always hop into a car and drive out to Long Island on Thanksgiving Day. Our friend’s mother would feed us a huge turkey dinner and loads of red wine, enough to make us twenty-something career girls feel like we had fulfilled our American obligation.
But what it really did was just make the four of us closer and more intertwined in one another’s lives.
When I met Johan, years later, he invited me to go skiing over the Thanksgiving holidays. For so many reasons I will never forget that trip, not in the least because we ate cheese fondue for dinner on Thursday evening.
And, on another Thanksgiving Day, long after that cheese fondue in the mountains, we were eating at a sweet little restaurant in the hills above Lake Como. It was there that my life really changed, when Johan proposed to me.
In keeping with the un-traditional theme, we married in Amsterdam on Thanksgiving Day, one year later.
So, for me, the Thanksgiving Day celebration has deepened and broadened over the years. I have come to believe that friends, family and dreams all pile in to one big fat day full of good vibes and good food.
Our expatriation to Japan has driven this notion home and has made me realise that the concept of family and the meaning of friends is varied and intricate…and often the same.
Since those long-ago days, eating turkey and drinking red wine on Long Island with my girlfriends, I have lived in four different countries and three continents. My experiences and adventures have been exciting and moving at the same time.
I am not a person who takes friendships lightly. I wouldn’t even say that I have many friends. I am not a social butterfly. I don’t go out looking everywhere for new “people”.
But wherever I am, I always find really good ones…really good people that become “my” people.
I don’t live around the corner from my parents or my siblings. I don’t ask my sister to water my plants if I go out of town. I can’t borrow a cup of sugar or a AA battery from my mother. And when the holidays roll around, there is no discussion over who will do the turkey, who is making the pies.
Living away from your family makes you independent and scrappy, but it also opens you to a whole new level of family.
My people here in Tokyo, most with long stories and different backgrounds just like me, are my network. They are the reason that I know where to buy spices, which doctor to call, how to book a hotel….they are the guys I call when I really need something. They give me support – in different ways, each one of them.
They are my people.
We are all here, living new and exciting lives. We live in close contact with one another. We see each other on the streets, in the grocery stores, at the movie theatres. We celebrate birthdays and Friday afternoons and the change of seasons. We advise each other on all of the local knowledge and experiences we gain and we share our highs and lows with care.
In a weird way we are all growing rich in experience and closeness that can only come from living side-by-side in adventure. We share something that is not easy to explain and, perhaps, a moment in time. But it is a strong connection which creates a “oneness” that I cherish.
On the contrary, we all have another reality which is completely separate from the here and now.
All of my people, here in Tokyo, have loved ones somewhere far away. Maybe they would spend Thanksgiving with them if they were closer, maybe they wouldn’t. But they certainly know what it feels like to be a long, long way from home. They know that feeling of having a piece missing.
My people will certainly never replace those dear loved ones that I long to hug when I am feeling down or to run to when I am ecstatic with awesome news. They won’t provide the same satisfaction as a Bloody Mary and long chat with my mother. And they might not be the ones I share Thanksgiving lunch with 5 years from now.
But, here’s the thing, they understand this too.
We will all probably move on one day. Some will go back home, some to their next posting. Perhaps we will stay in touch, follow one another on social media, visit one another on school breaks in far away lands. Or, perhaps we will lose touch and only have the “now” together. While I hope that that latter is true…
