HAPPY THANKSGIVING

It's a thing. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. This will be my second year away from home and my family on T-Give. The first time I was living in Paris as a student, winging my way through the Sorbonne's culture classes (amazingly enough I passed all with flying colors- alas, I didn't actually need any of the credits for my college career). There were (and are still I gather) probably many places I could have gone to celebrate the holiday. At 19, however, I was a little scared of a big city, a little uncomfortable with showing how much I liked such an American holiday, and definitely suffering from an inflated ego (it has been, in the past decade, the only time I have been stricken by such a malady). So I skipped it.

But this time, this time I celebrate. And I'm doing it right. Tonight's dinner will be the second of three Thanksgiving dinners I will have this year. The first was at home in NC- after I begged my mom to give me an early holiday. The third will be a massive gathering of Pat's friends and co-workers at on of their apartments... not really my ideal but what can I do... except to kindly pester my dear boy until he agreed to have a small, considerably more intimate affair on the actual day of Thanksgiving.

I think the main reasons I prefer this holiday above all others have to do with what it stands for- and has stood for for (sorry about that grammar) the past nearly 4 centuries. Thanksgiving has not changed much over time. It began as a gathering and that's still what it is: a gathering of people to celebrate and recognise the abundance of good in their lives (or whatever amount of good they may be experiencing). There's no gimmick to Thanksgiving. Greeting card companies haven't mauled it; most department stores in fact skip it; the only marginally corporate thing about it is that most of us get time off for it (except for Pat... T-Give isn't really a thing in China)... oh and Black Friday.

But Thanksgiving is what it is: time set aside to be with friends and family and any number of loved ones; to be full of good food and conversations; to be ripe and overflowing with happiness (and a little drama because of course someone always cooks something wrong, or burns something, or the turkey button doesn't pop *love you mom*); to be at ease. If it has changed at all in the past four hundred years, it has only gotten better- in my ever humble, happily tryptophaned opinion.

With Love and Holiday Cheer from China

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.