I love Christmas. It really doesn’t bother me that they start playing holiday music in stores before Thanksgiving, and I love to see decorations and lights go up. I love the festivities, the candy and cookies, eggnog and mulled wine, wrapping gifts. I love cheesy Christmas movies. I love how pretty the house looks when the tree goes up in the front hall, lights on the banister, stockings on the mantle. I love the Shiner Family Talent Show, and the slightly-patronizing-but-always-genuine chorus of “you did a good job.” And I love our Christmas tree, which is always overloaded with strings of lights, clumps of tinsel and so many mismatched ornaments that the branches are always weighed down.
(decorating the tree over Thanksgiving 2007)
But if I love Christmas (at least in part) for all of the “stuff” that goes into it, I also love Thanksgiving precisely because it lacks the “stuff.” Thanksgiving is wonderfully simple: a big meal, family, being intentional about the things we are grateful for.
Thanksgiving’s simplicity is also why I think I’m more homesick right now than I will be around Christmas. We’re planning a trip to Hanoi a month from now, and I’ve already picked out some fun decorations. There’s really no way to recreate Thanksgiving, though. Our families are half the world away, and I don’t think they even have turkey here (much less Tofurkey). No cranberry sauce, either.
It was a pretty average day here: Joey had the day off, but I taught in the evening. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Thai place we go to for dinner often had put up a tree and was playing Christmas music.
This morning I called home and got to talk to almost everyone around the dinner table for a minute or so before my phone conked off. I could hear the Sherrill Sister Cackle in the background, which made me miss home even more.
All in all, I’m incredibly grateful for this opportunity to travel and see the world, but I’m also thankful that I have wonderful family and friends to come home to after it all. Love to everyone.
(Okay, so the picture is of Halloween and not Thanksgiving, but there is a hand turkey and an Indian involved.)
I agree -- it's nice that T-day seems to have escaped some commercialism. Erg ... well then there is black Friday to make up for it ;-). Drat! Thinking about you from Florida. Jim, Heather, Emily, and Ann.
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