Giving Thanks

Today is Thanksgiving. 

our life in black and white pictures

At home, it's a national day of celebration - of food, family, traditions and a day off from work. 

But here in Thurso, Scotland, it is just a Thursday in November. 

Don't misunderstand - I am not sad about it. I am surprisingly fine. But it is different, knowing that I am on the other side of the world, experiencing this day differently. 

When I started to write this post, it was fully dark. 
The cars were going over the bridge just as they do every work day. 
And because it is just a Thursday- a regular day - I went out for my walk (I normally skip holidays) in the dark and the light rain (which to me, is just a slice of heaven).

Later this morning I will meet the ladies for coffee at the Pentland Hotel, sew in the afternoon, have leftover flank steak for supper and go to a yoga class with Mike. 

Today - here - it's just a regular day. 

I have never spent Thanksgiving as a regular day. 

a keen memory will recall there were only 4 of these in June

In the US, Thanksgiving is the official time for giving thanks to God for His goodness and for what He has provided. It started, of course, with the pilgrims giving thanks to God at the end of the harvest for His blessing on them in their new land - for their survival and His provision.

For me, the holiday has always been about family and food and tradition.

Thanksgiving is about being together with our family. And when we can't be with blood family, we spend it with 'framily' (friends who are like family- maybe even better than blood family because we get to choose them!)  

There was only one Thanksgiving I did not spend at home before getting married and that was my second year in college. It didn't seem to make sense to go home that year. 

I lived in Las Vegas and was going to school in Reno - a solid 10 hour drive. It was expensive to fly and took so long to drive to be there for just a couple of days, so I spent that Thanksgiving with my college friend, Diane, and her family.

leftovers....where will we put them?

After getting married, because we rarely lived near family, we spent most of our Thanksgivings just the two of us but inviting others to join us and occasionally joining friends at their house. (But you know, when you aren't the one preparing the meal, there aren't any leftovers.) 

So, I really like to host and prepare the meal.  And besides, I always enjoying having friends join us. When you go to all that bother with the food, it's just more fun to share it with others. 

The first year that Kathryn and Bryan lived in the Seattle area, they did not come home. However, they spent the day together at one of Kathryn's friends' house, eating and playing games with other young adults.

 But this is the first year in 26 years that we will not be with any of our kids. And none of them will be together, either. I guess it will be different for all of us. 

Thanksgiving is also about the food. Like most holidays, it has its traditions - both the ones we each grew up with and ones we have created together over the years.

Growing up in my family, our meal was always turkey, sage bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet corn (often brought to us in a suitcase from PA by my grandparents, along with Pappy's homemade bread and cinnamon rolls made the day before traveling), brown and serve rolls, jellied cranberry sauce from a can, sliced along the ridged lines from the can, and pumpkin pie with cool whip. Mom would get up early in the morning to put the turkey in the oven on low temperature. We would start smelling it by late morning and had to endure the teasing our noses gave us until we could eat in the afternoon about 2:00.

Mike and I have created our own traditions. Over the years, they have shifted and changed as we experienced new things and added children, etc. 

Our day usually starts with a breakfast casserole and/or homemade cinnamon rolls on this morning. We often have cheese and crackers to snack on during the early afternoon because we want to save our appetite for the 'meal, ' which we will eat in the early afternoon around 2:00 so that we have lots of time for the food to digest, have room to eat pie later, and then nibble at leftovers later in the evening.  

The meat is always turkey. Always homemade stuffing - the same as my own mom always made - with dried bread cubes and celery, onions, butter, and lots of sage. Mike has grown to enjoy the stuffing, although it is not what he grew up with. His mom made a meat stuffing that didn't have a hint of sage in it.

There are several foods I adopted from my Mike's mom, but stuffing was not one of them. In fact, I realize now that I never had an opportunity to actually eat her stuffing.

I remember my first Thanksgiving as a married woman. Mike was in the navy and we lived in Alameda, CA, and were not going home for the holiday because it was about a 12 hour drive. So, I boldly asked Mike to invite some single men from the ship to come for dinner.

I say 'boldly' because I was new at cooking. I had never made Thanksgiving dinner before. I had never cooked a turkey or made stuffing. In fact, I was having trouble just getting 3 parts of a regular meal to come out at the same time. We usually ate our meals in courses at that time, in whatever order things were 'done.'  

That year,  I spent a LOT of time on the phone with my mom trying to learn how to make the stuffing. I was a new cook and did not know how to cook by 'feel.' In fact, I still don't, really. I am a good recipe-follower. I can do measurements. But I don't know how to get around wishy-washy recipes that call for 'some' onion, 'some' celery, and 'some' sage.  Now, of course, after all these years of making it, I can do that.  I know what it should look like and feel like and taste like.

The Thanksgiving meal is all about the planning, which I have become very good at. It's one of my gifts - to think through the detailed lists of things and put them in order. 

you can't really see it, but there is a rainbow in the distance

The Day Before: 

The frozen turkey is defrosted in water the day before and sits in a covered pan outside on the deck overnight because it is usually cold enough . Bread is cubed and dried in the oven and then moistened with all the right stuff and also put outside for the night so that the flavors meld. If homemade rolls are going to be served, they are also made now. But my kids like the brown and serve rolls and we discovered the joy of butter flake rolls a few years ago, so we usually just buy rolls.  The pies are made and usually cut into after supper this night. 

the path along the river that I walk on, now covered with leaves

The Day Of: 

 Sweet potatoes are cooked first thing in the morning, then mashed and the marshmallows put on top This is also a tradition at our house. 
I tried to do something different one year - to make sweet potatoes with a yummy brown sugar glaze and nuts - and got nothing but grief from the kids. They were delicious, but so not worth the complaining! So, I have made the marshmallow ones ever since. 
(But, heh heh, the kids aren't here this year!! and now I will do what I want!)

The apple salad gets all prepped except for the Cool Whip that is added at the last minute. The turkey is put in the oven around 11. But the real pay-off of years of experience is the ability to bring it all together at the last minute - a skill I have learned from years and years of meal preparations. 
The potatoes are cooked, water reserved to put in the gravy, the turkey is removed from the oven and allowed to rest. When the turkey comes out, the sweet potatoes go in and the stuffing removed. The turkey juices are added to the potato water and the gravy started. Corn is heated (usually we have sweet corn that I purchased at the farmer's market the summer prior, blanched, cut off the cob, and froze. Mmm. There's something especially wonderful about that because of my childhood - Pappy and Grandma made sure we had some from Pennsylvania). Turkey is sliced, rolls are heated, and everything gets put into a bowl or onto a plate or into a bowl. Voila!  After hours and hours of work, it is ready to be consumed in 15 minutes. 

Pie. This is a very important part of the Thanksgiving meal. My kids might say it's the most important part.  We always had pumpkin pie, both growing up and married until some years ago when we spent the day with our friends, Wes and Cristy Bratton, and we had Cristy's pecan pie. I never actually cared for pecan pie until I ate hers. There was no going back.

For quite a few years, I made both a pumpkin and a pecan, but started realizing that my family was not really eating the pumpkin any more. So, now I make 2 pecan pies - and we start enjoying the first one the day before. :)
And we drink sparkling cider. Served in wine glasses.
And there is a table cloth. And candles. 
And we often use the good china, but it's a struggle to make that decision every year because, while I want to use it on this special day,it has to be hand-washed. And really, there are plenty of dishes that need to be washed, without adding the plates as well. 

Enough about food. 

In the mornings, we turn on the TV and watch the Macy's Day Parade. Or at least listen to it while I prepare foods in the kitchen. Rarely do we actually sit and watch it through. But we especially love to watch the bands perform and will run in from other rooms to marvel at their sound and creativity in such a small space. 

Sometimes it seems like it would be fun to be there in person to see the parade - to stand in the cold and, hopefully, some snow flurries and experience the sights and sounds and energy in person. But mostly, I am happy to be in my own home, preparing food.

Another tradition is to play games. Our family loves games. Our family go-to game has been Five Crowns, which we have been playing since Emily was 5. It is often affectionately called "Emily Wins." We also have played our share of dominoes - Mexican Train and Chicken Foot. And as the kids got older, we taught them other card games, like "Hearts" and "Pinnochle," and "Euchre."  

And now the kids bring their own games they have acquired and teach us. We start the games after breakfast and play until we need to set the table. And after dinner we continue through the afternoon. 

So, over the years, we took the foods and traditions we grew up with and melded them and molded them into our own traditions. I guess that's how it's supposed to be done when you join two different lives and experiences and traditions.  And I expect that my kids will each take some things they grew up with and combine them with their spouse's traditions and figure out which ones they want to keep and how to merge them to make their own. I wonder which foods and or traditions they will continue to have or make each year because "that's what we had when I was growing up."

But aside from the food and the games and the family time, Thanksgiving is really about taking a time to slow down and reflect on the Lord's goodness. I do this daily and specifically, but today I am going to share them in writing. But I will refrain from specifics, or we could be here all day. 

Firstly, I am thankful that I know the Lord Jesus as my Savior. I am thankful for His sacrifice and the gift of life He has given me. I am thankful that I know who God is through His Word and that He speaks to me and guides me and directs my steps and comforts me.

I am thankful to Him for all the good things in my life because they all come from Him. But I am also thankful for the hard things that He allows into my life because they cause me to turn to Him and lean into Him to trust in Him and rest in Him. The hard things cause me to focus on who He is - His character: good, faithful, powerful, just, loving, generous, holy, Father.

I thank God for Michael - for growing him into a good man of strong character. A kind, loving, generous husband. A good worker. A good provider for his family. A good father and so many other good qualities.
I thank Him for Mike's work - that he has engaging, challenging work.
I thank Him for my children - Kathryn,  Bryan and Emily, whom He loves even more than I do. For the ability to appreciate and enjoy each one because of the way He has created them.
I thank Him for the family I grew up in - the love and stability and acceptance and encouragement given and received.
I thank Him for the opportunity to trust Him in our move to Scotland. I thank Him for the ways He came before us - providing this wonderful flat in an ideal location in town, with the view of the river and the bridge and life going past, providing friends to walk with and play games with and sew with, and a new church with strong Bible teaching and people who have embraced us, and for fun things to see and do and experience here.
I thank Him for the technology that enables me to be here and still stay connected to my children, my friends, and my family, not just through emails, texts and phone calls, but also through Skype and FB Messenger video.  And also for this blog, which has been a really fun way to share our experiences here.

taken at Oregon beach summer 2016          I love this picture!

Today is Thanksgiving. 

My friends and family will be celebrating in different places and different ways this year. And that is OK.

For us here, today is just a regular Thursday. 

But on Saturday, we will celebrate God's goodness with some of our new friends over a traditional meal of turkey, stuffing and pie.  And, hopefully, we will play some games. 

Because that is what we do on Thanksgiving with our framily.