Thanksgiving has been billed as the end of an era in my family this year. My parents are hosting the family dinner in their Oregon home for the last time before they sell their comfortable, spacious house and downsize to a one-level place. At least, that’s what they keep telling us. Speaking from recent experience, I can confidently say that buying and selling a house takes longer than you think it will, and knowing my parents, I wouldn’t say with certainty that they’ll be out of theirs before next November. Still, that’s the plan, so my three brothers and their spouses, my six nieces and nephews, plus my two cousins and their two kids will all make the journey through the evergreen forests to converge on the warm and cozy Huntington Drive house this week with silly amounts of delicious food to share.
I won’t be there. The home I lived in from ages thirteen to eighteen will be filled with everyone in my family except me. But I’ve been to enough Lindsley family Thanksgivings that I can envision how the event will go. The dining table and card tables will be set up with elegant autumnal table cloths and centerpieces. The natural wood buffet table in the kitchen will be laden with an indecent number of pies of every variety imaginable, including a “mystery pie” designed to test the taste buds. Scents of sweet potato casserole browning in the oven, fluffy potatoes being mashed, and a huge smoked turkey sizzling away will permeate every corner of the house and make tummies rumble.
The absurdly long remodeled kitchen will be bustling with my mom in an apron and some variety of her daughters-in-law, with the occasional appearance by my brothers. My dad will be as far away from the action as he can manage, likely outside in the shop. The younger kids will be chasing each other around the downstairs, or playing music on the drums and xylophones, or playing games, while the tweens are ensconced in the squishy tan sectional that borders the family room, staring at their phones and ignoring the world around them. My siblings and cousins will be catching up with each other’s news. Despite all living on the west coast, they don’t see each other that often, and they will be sharing how jobs are going, how the kids are doing in school, and what new sewing or DIY house projects they’re tackling. It will be pleasant and comfortable, with only a light dusting of chaos, now that most of the grandkids are older and that my two rambunctious children, one and five years old, won’t be there.
My son, a toddler with a sense of humor and his own agenda, has never been to that house. Born a few months into the pandemic, and shortly after we moved from Hawaii to England, he was eleven months old before he even met my parents in person. He has never been on an airplane, has never been outside of the UK. My brothers and their families are just moving pictures on a screen to him.
In contrast, my five-year-old daughter has been on about thirty airplanes in her short life, traversing oceans and continents, and last visited my parents’ house two years ago. But Covid and time have obliterated those memories for her. Even her previous home of Hawaii is more of a feeling than a memory now--just warmth, fragrant breezes, and contentment. Oregon is a foreign concept to her, just like the holiday of Thanksgiving itself. She doesn’t remember her last Thanksgiving in Oregon as a three-year-old, drawing pictures on the kitchen chalkboard with Grandpa, who made it down onto the floor with her. Or reading If You Give a Mouse a Cookie with Grammie in the floral armchair. Trying to emulate her big cousins who were very sweet and patient with her. As etched into my memory as those events were, the relevant synapses in her brain have already been pruned and discarded. So this week I’ve been trying to explain to my daughter what Thanksgiving is about. A budding English girl, she remains unconvinced of its importance.
“But it’s not a real holiday since I won’t get to stay home from school,” she told me yesterday. Admittedly, she has a point. Thanksgiving doesn’t feel quite the same living in England, when no one else is snug at home on a Thursday, cooking up a storm, and gathering with family to celebrate. There’s a sort of inertia that washes over you when celebrating something by yourself in another country. When the only turkeys you can find in the stores are frozen ones set out early for Christmas, and when you have to order canned pumpkin from Amazon because it doesn’t exist elsewhere. When British people look incredulous and slightly disgusted if you mention pumpkin pie. It’s tough to be an American abroad on Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday that revels in the concept of home, with comforting rituals of food and family to encourage you to reflect on the beauty and bounties of your home and family life. Yet because you have made your life in a foreign country, your whole understanding of what constitutes home has acquired so many shades of complexity that nothing and nowhere quite feels like home anymore. Try as you might to approximate those rituals, you simply can’t evoke the sentiments in the same way. Instead of togetherness, you feel more alone.
But I wouldn’t want to abandon my family’s traditions and give up on Thanksgiving. Given that my family doesn’t celebrate Christmas together, Thanksgiving is the one holiday of the year where we acknowledge the beauty, vitality, and quirkiness of the now much-expanded Lindsley family. Where we overcome our introversion and ineptitude at polite conversation for the sake of building unity amongst our selves and our spouses and our children. It’s also where we remember our loved ones who have passed on, by sharing stories about them and keeping their traditions alive. Before my family eats their Thanksgiving meal, for instance, they will undoubtedly circle around the kitchen holding hands (or touching elbows this year, perhaps) and chant “yummmmm” in the style of my aunt Maya, whose peaceful and loving presence will be missed again this year. Thanksgiving allows us to see how beautiful the foliage is on our family tree, and the falling leaves outside remind us of those who have already floated away from our branches.
As I thought about Thanksgiving this year, my second year in a row of not physically being with my family, I reflected on the purpose of the holiday and its place in my life. Thanksgiving isn’t just about catching up with relatives and stuffing our faces with food. And as I’m realizing more with each year I spend outside of the US, it also isn’t about relishing the coziness of my parents’ house and feeling comforted and loved by the people I grew up around. I live 4,750 miles away from my parents and siblings. If I focus on the distance between us and what I’m missing out on because of it, I’d much rather skip Thanksgiving altogether. It hurts too much. Besides, if my parents do manage to sell their house before next November, I won’t have a familiar home to go back to anyway. So I have to let go of those ephemeral desires and focus on what Thanksgiving is really about.
Thanksgiving is about gratitude. That’s what I told my daughter anyway. She quickly latched onto the concept and started listing things she was thankful for. “I’m very thanksgiving for having such a wonderful loving mum,” she said, before hugging me with a warm smile. I managed to keep a straight face at her misuse of the word “thanksgiving”, and then cringed inside just a little that she called me her mum instead of her mom. But I let the moment pass and listened to the rest of her gratitude list. It was sweet and thoughtful, a beautiful reflection of her five-year-old mind.
And reflection is needed if we are to look deep enough within ourselves to feel a genuine sense of gratitude for all of the twists and turns that life throws at us. What a marvelous and unexpected journey I’ve had that has led me to this place. From Washington, to Missouri, to Oregon, to Ohio, to Paris, to Hawaii, to England, I’ve taken with me the love of my family, my husband, and now my children wherever I go. Thanksgiving gives us the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of home and family, and when I think about the manifold blessings I’ve received, gratitude wells up within me, threatening to leak out as tears. This time of reflection, this appreciation for life’s bounties, this thankfulness for the people in our lives is what I want to pass along to my children by sharing my holiday with them.
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| A first Thanksgiving for my Scottish in-laws |
unity by celebrating Thanksgiving in England. In the words of my dad, “We live in two worlds at the same time. In the one there is distance and in the other only nearness. To travel on the wings of love in this world you just have to move your thoughts to your desired destination and there you are!” I’m right there with you, Dad.
P. S. Speaking of homes, Rory and I have just bought our first house! We get the keys tomorrow! š
