Thanksgiving 2021

 I have not checked, but I suspect that I write something about the melancholy I feel as the holiday season approaches every year.  Of course the pandemic has exacerbated everything.

An online, Zoom  memorial service this afternoon doesn't help.

There will be a small number around our table for Thanksgiving this year.  We have had so many different Thanksgiving experiences over the years.  It was always a time shared with family unless we were overseas.  And then we grew our own family.

Our first Thanksgiving dinner overseas was 1996 in Bangkok.   I was pregnant (with the baby we lost).  I figured that there would be too much waste with a turkey, so we cooked a duck.  I had no idea that duck has so little meat!   Learned a lesson there.

In 1984 or 85, I cannot remember, we had a Thanksgiving gathering in our house in Tromso, Norway.  I cooked two turkeys:  one was ordered form the butcher shop in town, the other one we bought in Finland.  The Norwegian turkey did not have enough fat I guess.  It's leg bones broke in the oven.  The Finnish turkey was much meatier and juicy.  An American friend who worked in a hotel was able to get sweet potatoes .  There were some American high school kids- exchange students, living there and we had them for dinner.  I remember explaining in Norwegian,  that Courtney would be missing school that day.  How did I explain Thanksgiving in Norwegian?   The closest I could get was to say that it was the day we thank god for all we have to be thankful for.

In Taiwan, a group of us went to a friend's house for a pot luck dinner.  The host was to serve turkey.  Unfortunately it was discovered too late that the host's propane for the oven had run out before the turkey was fully cooked!

In China we had a community dinner.  I remember cooking two turkeys that year as well.   

Our family grew and grew over the years.  Family dinners were the norm.  Then the kids grew up and had lives of their own.  The older generation grew old and eventually they all died.

And now we are the older generation.   

And I find myself spending hours and dollars online ordering Christmas gifts.  All of the "kids" will be here for Christmas.  Their partners/ spouses and a few cats and kids too.

So I anticipate.  I grieve.  And I look forward to the joy.

1992