This year was the first time I have ever had Thanksgiving away from my family. Once, right out of college, I had Thanksgiving with a boyfriend's family (it was a disaster of epic proportions... too much family drama!) but I had dessert and spent more time with my brother that evening than I did with the boyfriend. So... I'm going to say that doesn't really count. This was the first time I have not been with any sort of family for Thanksgiving. I was kind of worried I would get homesick, but I also think Thanksgiving is going to be easier than Christmas.
I had some preconceived notions and stereotypes about military Thanksgivings. This year both validated and challenged these ideas I had.
We were invited to my friend (my only friend over here, minus my cousin) Melissa's house for Thanksgiving. She was hosting for her husband's entire shop, and invited us to come over as well. I was excited by this because we a). had plans, b). wouldn't be alone, and c). I wouldn't have to cook a turkey by myself. In the time from the initial invitation to Thanksgiving day, our invitation morphed from "please join us" to "please help us." Melissa had casually told people if they had a Thanksgiving favorite or something they loved having, they should bring it. She also had her husband put out a sheet where people could sign up to say what they were going to bring. Nobody signed up. No one had officially volunteered to bring anything. This is where the "help us" came from. I had always envisioned military holiday meals to be one giant pot-luck where everyone brought something, there was tons of food, everyone helped out. The lack of commitment from Melissa's guests was really challenging what I thought things were going to be like. This did more than challenge my ideas of how things should/would be... it made me mad. How rude! You are invited as a guest to basically get a free meal, a free wonderful holiday meal. My mom taught me when you are a guest at someone's house you always ask what you can bring. If you're told you don't need to bring anything... you bring something anyways. When you bring something, you don't just bring one tiny portion or one measly bottle of something... you bring enough to actually contribute. I just... I couldn't even fathom that no one was going to help out with dinner, no one was going to bring anything. It made me mad, and I wasn't even the hostess. I was mad for her. Josh assured me this wasn't "typical" behavior and it was just this particular group of people who were acting this way. I would hope so.
Melissa asked for help. We were happy to. Josh and I are similar in that we would do pretty much anything to help someone out. We also love food and love to eat. We decided to bring appetizers/snack foods, and desserts. Josh tends to get a bit excited when he has to cook something/prepare something for an occasion. Like for our wedding. Our wedding was a small affair with just our immediate families there. We decided to have some snack foods out for everyone. Every time I thought we were done and had enough food... Josh would start making another dip, or cutting up more cheese... But, I will say, at the end of the night all of the food was gone. Josh went to town working on appetizers for Thanksgiving with the same gusto as he did for our wedding. He made a meat a cheese tray, meet and cheese roll-ups, lumpia (a Korean egg roll), and deviled eggs. I made a relish tray (because that is a Thanksgiving tradition in my family), 7 layer dip, and Chex mix. I also made four pies - two apple, two pumpkin - for dessert. I also made my Grandma Shirley's cranberry sauce. That is a staple in our family's holiday dinners, and I think it is amazing. When we arrived at Melissa's house we had to make two trips to carry everything inside. Melissa is a wonderfully gracious hostess, and she kept thanking us profusely for all of the food and work. What can I say? Lehmans like to party.
Dinner wasn't suppose to be served until 2, but we arrived at 10 to help out. Here is where I should explain that Melissa is a southern bell. Our menu for the day included mac and cheese (she asked me if we had this at Thanksgiving, and when I told her no she thought we were crazy! Crazy Northern Yankees!), two types of stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (which I'd never had before - it was amazing), green bean casserole, baked beans (again, she couldn't believe we didn't have this at our Thanksgiving dinners), two turkeys, ham, cranberry sauce, and rolls. Holy food. I helped her to cook, which was a challenge as German ovens are at least 1/3 of the size of a normal American oven, and everything is in Celsius. However, everything turned out perfectly and was ready mostly on time.
There was probably around 20 people who showed up for dinner. This was the military turn-out I was expecting. And almost everyone showed up with some food or dessert to share. My faith was restored and people had redeemed themselves. The dinner itself was exactly what I thought a "military dinner" would be... lots of people, lots of food... everyone sharing stories of where they are from, what their family does for holidays. It was a great sense of togetherness. Though my family is a couple thousand miles away... I felt far from alone. I was happy to be with Josh and with Melissa. It was great to spend the holiday with my husband and a friend. I had a lot of fun and learned LOTS of great new southern cooking tricks. We were happy, warm, safe, and FULL of food. There is a lot to be thankful for.
A girl I went to high school with is living in Italy as her husband is stationed there with the Army. It's a small world. She keeps a blog as well. I was reading it this morning, and I have to share/steal something she posted, as it is something I think about all the time.
"This year I am so thankful to have the opportunity to live in Italy. I have heard a lot of people complaining about living here and it makes me sad. On the one hand, yes it is hard to be far from home and family and familiar things. But on the other hand I think it is all about your attitude. It can be oh so wonderful to experience all of these new things. Yes, it's scary sometimes. But it's wonderful too. The time will fly by and soon each of us military families will move back to the states, this is really a very short time we have here overall. So ENJOY it! " - from the blog The Life of an Army Wife Abroad by Jen Lloyd
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