I’m spending my 8th consecutive Thanksgiving outside of the country this year. Writing it down doesn’t make it seem any less crazy or daunting, somehow. 8 Novembers of madness, searching for friends and meaning on a day when we give thanks for anything and everything that might bring us happiness. (that’s how I like to think of it anyway.)
My first Thanksgiving in France was not very memorable, and yet I remember it vividly nonetheless. I spent that Thursday eating peanuts and drinking beer with my friend Helene near Opera. Convinced it would be my only Thanksgiving outside of the country for the foreseeable future, I relished in the deviation from tradition. I was an American abroad who didn’t care about turkey, and I loved it. The second year was spent with company I no longer keep, and the third with some middle aged men I knew from an Anglophone bar near Rue Mouffetard. They bought a 25-pound turkey (for 5 people) and I’m pretty sure only invited me ‘cos I said I would bake the pies. We drank whiskey and played cards and laughed quite a lot, and I took a cab back to my place in the wee hours of the morning. My 4th Thanksgiving in Paris was at the American Cathedral where we ate copiously and were charitable, but it wasn’t until my 5th when I came into my own.
My 5th Thanksgiving in Paris was the first year I lived with French Fry. We had space, and a (relatively) large kitchen and I was hell bent on cooking a feast I hadn’t fully enjoyed since college (that Thanksgiving is story in and of itself). An American friend agreed to handle the turkey, another the pumpkin pie, and with 2 burners and an easy-bake style oven, I did the rest. My first cornbread stuffing, my first from-scratch green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, roast sweet potatoes, dinner rolls and my specialty, chocolate bourbon pecan pie. We ate, we were merry, and my niece learned that mashed potatoes are typically made with real potatoes as opposed to dehydrated flakes. It was good, but would only get better.
The following year I did the whole darn thing including the turkey. A real oven helped, and I got the largest bird that would fit. I think back to who came that year, and most of the guests were French, or at least not American. They were eager to discover a tradition (not that the promise of free food and wine didn’t help), and the effort was not lost. And last year I had the particular luck of having my parents in town for the occasion, so the day (the actual day, not the Saturday before or after) was spent with my parents, French Fry, and a dear American friend who now lives on the other side of the world.
This year, I have no plans for turkey or stuffing or overt drunkenness. I attended a celebration last weekend which provided me with all of the traditional food and debauchery I could possibly want or need. Instead, I will wake up, go to the dog park, sing, go to tae kwon do practice and have an omelet for dinner. I will not host my own party this weekend, and I will not be eating leftovers for the next three weeks. This year I get to reflect back on why the past several years were so special (last weekend’s celebration included). There is one common theme, and that is that they were all so drastically different. None of my celebrations looked the same in food, location, and most especially in company. I have spent the last 7 years giving thanks, with the exception of 2-3 common denominators, with different people.
Which brings me to this weeks’ terrifying thing. New friends. I have made so many of them this year, which even as a well-adjusted adult, is never easy. Living in a large urban area, foreign country or not, lends itself to a permanent cycling of people, but the call of home or new adventures is strong here, and as many friends as I’ve made over the years, as many have left. This past year seemed to be a particularly startling one in that so many of my friends drifted away or moved on to new and exciting prospects (seriously, one is currently sailing around the world, another about to start a job working with refugees in Thailand), and so I found myself in search of new and interesting souls yet again.
And so my terrifying thing this week coincides with what I am most thankful for on this holiday: the courage and the ability to meet new people and make new friends, and the wealth of interesting, lovely, and inspiring people to choose from. The last couple of months have been particularly fruitful and this respect, and I don’t want it to go unrecognized.
So what I have to say is: talk to the interesting girl in your yoga class, or email that awesome couple you met at a food event last year, or invite yourself to a party that was suggested to you on Facebook. I wasn’t the coolest kid in middle school, so I still live (only slightly) in fear that these advances would go unwelcomed…but actually, I did all of those things this year, and I have many new friends to show for it. And I couldn’t be any more thankful.