Thanksgiving (sort of)

I LOVE Thanksgiving.  It is my favorite holiday. I love the cooking, the prepping, the food, the eating. I love spending the day doing nothing but visiting with family and friends and new people that come along.  I love eating leftovers for days afterward. I love it's simplicity: cook a lot of food, eat a lot of food, share it with a lot of people you love, make a lot of people happy.

This year, living in a country devoid of Thanksgiving (!) I was to supposed to spend the day attending class debates and lectures and working on papers. Instead, by an un/fortunate(?) twist of fate I get to spend it in bed with the flu. (Dear God, this is not what I meant when I said I'd rather spend the holiday at home.) Although I must say, it has helped to ease the longing for a full Thanksgiving meal.

This is my first non-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving in, well, my entire 28 years.  My childhood was filled with large and loving holiday meals at my various grandparents homes (I have an exceptionally large extended family - the 'mangrove forest' as I like to refer to it), some with two or three turkeys, dozens of pies, and a few hundred family members and friends rotating in and out of the doors.  I brought the tradition to Boston with me, and have hosted/co-hosted a dinner every year for the last five years.  The first year there was just three of us, and a lot of leftovers (as I insisted on cooking the traditional Thanksgiving menu in it's entirety).  It grew over time and last year there were around fifty - we had to borrow tables and chairs from the church and rearrange all the furniture.  It was wonderful.

Don't feel too badly for me this year.  While I'm spending today sipping broth and eating soda crackers, my co-eds have given me the opportunity to host a traditional Thanksgiving Dinner the first week of December, after all the craziness of term paper and assignment deadlines has passed.  Most of them have never had a true American Thanksgiving meal and I'm very excited to share my favorite holiday with them, even if it's not on a Thursday in November.

Speaking of thanksgiving - in the voicing your gratitude sense - here are a few snapshots of life here in the UK, an experience that I am every day grateful for and which wouldn't be possible without the support of my loving family and friends.

Visitors, a good English fry up, and packages full of goodies from family and friends.

My little kitchen, cookbooks, a basil plant, comfort food on a rainy day, and delightful things like Essence of Rose Water.

My little flat, with its high ceilings, carved crown moldings, and big bright windows.

Cycling through Bushy Park, St. Marks Church across the street, sunsets, and the tree outside my window.

The opportunity to study amazing, interesting, and important things with wonderful people.