Happy, happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  I'm only a little late...We celebrated, as always, the Saturday after Thanksgiving since Thursday obviously is not a holiday in Spain.  So this post is just under a week late. ;)  Not bad.

This year is a strange year (understatment of the century!), but I'm sure now that Thanksgiving has passed you'll all agree with me that it is so anti-natural to have to think about distancing and masking and quarantining or just flat out NOT celebrating with the people you love.  

About a month ago I warned Angelines that whatever the situation of the pandemic, we would be eating turkey and celebrating Thanksgiving...even if it was just the three of us.  In my mind, I had decided to make up little Thanksgiving day baskets of food to leave at my friends' doors and we could maybe zoom for a bit to toast.  The week before Thanksgiving I was talking with a friend about it and she reminded me that the current restrictions allow for gatherings of up to six people, so why not invite a few friends.  One good friend who always attends Thanksgiving lost his father just two weeks before and I wasn't sure he would feel up to getting together to celebrate.  Another good friend lives with her elderly and diabetic mother and I thought maybe she would be concerned about coming over to the house.  But in the end, I thought I might as well ask, worst case scenario, they would say no and I'd take them a basket of turkey and pumpkin pie anyway.

I decided to call my friend who lost his father first.  When I asked if he thought he and his partner would be up to coming to celebrate his answer made me cry: it's not about what I feel up to, it's actually something I need.  Now, more than ever, I need to be with the people I love and the people who love me.  Of course we'll be there.  I was in tears on the phone.  My friend who lives with her mother also accepted the invitation immediately.  And really, except for Emily, who is in school, and I guess myself, teaching in Estepa, none of us have really been socializing or seeing anyone.  So it was relatively safe.

When I hung up that morning I was overwhelmed by grattitude.  I was so grateful that I could offer this "excuse", or perhaps opportunity is the better word, for us to all get together and soak up the love and friendship that we are all starved for lately.  I was so happy and so proud that the most beautiful of American traditions has also really become a tradition here in La Roda; that my friends are all so willing and excited to partake and share with me in my traditions turned theirs; and above all that I could do this for them.

This year was the first year in 14 years of celebrating that Angelines wouldn't have to rush off after "dinner" (actually lunch) to open the bar.  It was also the first year that I didn't have to clean the bar the morning of our celebration while the turkey was cooking in the oven.  For the first time, Angelines and I could prepare together, cleaning, washing dishes, setting the table.  Everything was ready and set before our guests arrived...I think this is a first, too!

Emily helped too, of course.  First thing she said in the morning (her eyes popped open at 6:50am) was, when can we go put the oil on the turkey??  She LOVES Thanksgiving and was especially excited this year to have our friends come: "I haven't seen them in so long!"  It warmed my heart to see how much she loves our friends.  She made each of them a little present and was in her element as the center of attention throughout our feast. 

Our Thanksgiving menu has become it's own tradition.  We don't usually get too creative when it comes to the food prep because we all love the food we've always made.  My pinenut-raisin stuffing is a classic at this point, a friend always brings the mashed potatoes (amazingly good!), another brings a gorgeous green salad.  We always have some kind of cooked veggie, too.  This year, I asked Angelines to make her grilled mixed vegetables--soooo good!  Then of course we have turkey, gravey, cranberry chutney and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  We did branch out this year with the desserts: in honor of my good friend Adam, we made tapioca pudding (a tradition he shared with us when we celebrated together 13 years ago).  It was delicious!  I made it with coconut milk rather than cream...and it was fabulous. 

Even amidst the strangeness of having to limit our invitations and worrying about things like having windows open despite the cold, this was one of my very favorite Thanksgiving celebrations ever.  We were so starved for each other's company that we didn't even really eat turkey, but just feasted on stories, laugher, friendship and love...really what Thanksgiving is all about.