Happy Thanksgiving!

The fourth Thursday in November, Thanksgiving Day in the US of A, ushers in the “official” start of the Christmas season in our modern day world. It is marked with parades, huge family meals featuring turkey, gravy, and all the trimmings, day-long displays of athletic prowess—or not, as sometimes happens— and the appearance of Santa throughout malls and stores, the festival has become a commercial event in which the origins and meaning of the day are almost totally obscured. The modern day Thanksgiving is a far different occasion than the original Thanksgiving, as we know it today, has come a long way from the Pilgrim’s harvest festival in 1621. It is an event that seems, as each year goes by, to reinvent itself and to expand its meaning to larger vistas. Maybe this is the real significance of the occasion; for as we continue to change and grow as a people, there are an increasing number of things for which we can be thankful. Over the past few years, I have spent thanksgving day with friends and their families who have celebrated thanksgiving with a fervour that would even outdo my last Christmas dinner (which was my official Christmas dinner with an abundance of family and all the trimmings)-this will be the first year that I will be home with any sort of family. My husband has never lived in America so the concept of thanksgiving is alien to him. Why would anyone want to cook exactly the same things as one does for Christmas a month in advance- roast turkey or the veggie alternative for me- cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, the obligatory green bean casserole and of course the yummy pumpkin pie. I am, uncharacteristically, upbeat about celebrating Thanksgiving this year with him. Perhaps it is because his family (knowingly or unknowingly) are foisting their Christmas traditions on me.

I will be making pumpkin pie of course- with canned pumpkin (rather than the real thing because it is too tedious to skin, boil, mash, sieve pumpkin through cheesecloth to remove stringy bits) which reduced my culinary skills by a few notches in my husband's eyes who happens to be an unofficial gourmet chef in his own right. I refuse to let my enthusiasm be dampened. I haven’t seen my husband in 4 weeks and am looking forward to going back home. Long distance relationships are more difficult than they are made out to be and the adjustments that marriage requires becomes even more complicated. My in laws perplex me. I think they love me (and I love them too for all their idiosyncrasies, they are very caring. Show me one family that doesn’t have its own idiosyncrasies?!!) . I have been able to breathe a lot easier after my mother in law stopped redecorating my husbands house and designing our garden for us too. Did she think that I couldnt possibly be any good at redecorating or working out what plants our garden needed or that I didnt have the imagination to even begin to think of what needed to be done to our home? I don’t think I have an evil mother in law. I just thinks she has an overactive sense of responsibility to “educate” her new daughter in law and it never crosses her mind that the new daughter in law is an independent, intelligent woman of the 21st century(a feisty one to boot!) who has lived on her own for the last 9 years now who might have different tastes and want to do things differently. She doesn’t realise that her tinkering with her sons house as she has done for several years is causing her to step on my fragile toes, albeit unknowingly. Here I was, trying to be model daughter in law for two years by giving her full reign of her sons house and life so that she wouldnt feel alienated just because her son had a new woman in his life and suddenly, my life has been taken over by her planning as well. Awfully kind and thoughtful of her methinks but i sometimes wonder if my acquiescence has been taken for granted. There is a fine line between interference and meddling and being helpful- and mostly it depends on my mood!!! My husband is a gentle sweetie and loves me- He constantly supports and encourages me and is everything that I was looking for in my Prince Charming.
I do have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday. Happy thanksging to all!