Over the past five years, our family has experienced the most nontraditional Thanksgiving celebrations I could have ever imagined.
It’s not as if we’ve celebrated the holiday in, say, Turkey or on an exotic island, but for me, after 30-plus years of hosting your basic turkey/stuffing/pumpkin pie sit-down dinner for 20 family members, I never thought it would be any different.
But life happens, and you go with the flow.
I should have seen the changes coming when my son went off to college and couldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving. As a mama bear, I couldn’t imagine him eating a tofu burger or whatever he was eating back then instead of my home-cooked turkey and all the fixins.
So I mailed him a home-cooked turkey dinner. Overnight, of course.
That was our first nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner, and many more were to follow.
After the kids flew the nest and we moved and moved again and again, it was nothing but nontraditional Thanksgiving experiences for us all.
Last year, our daughter helped cook four turkeys and made side dishes with her friends in rehab, which I doubt she ever imagined doing, but she enjoyed herself and felt proud of her new-found cooking skills.
A few years ago, we drove to Canada to be with our son who is in graduate school in Vancouver. He had already enjoyed a Canadian Thanksgiving in October, but I wanted to share the holiday with him, so we drove across the U.S./Canadian border with a fresh turkey, gravy, precooked pies, and maybe a bottle or case of wine hidden under the bird.
Our hotel had an oven—a tiny oven—and I set out to make a slightly nontraditional Thanksgiving for my son and ten other smarty-pants grad students.
I found the ironing board made a wonderful sideboard for the desserts, and the dressers in the bedroom were pushed into the living room to hold more food. The hotel staff was amused and very helpful and provided me with tables and chairs.
The dinner was a success, and we sat at the tables in the high-rise hotel overlooking Vancouver as we discussed American politics and ate the last bit of pumpkin pie.
Last year, The Husband and I were managing a B&B in Springdale, and as much as I wanted to make a turkey, I was too exhausted to cook. The owners kindly pushed us out the door and made us reservations at Flanigan’s Inn outside the gates of Zion. I wasn’t into it, having never eaten at a restaurant for Thanksgiving, but the moment I walked in the door and saw the place packed with people from all over the country, I felt at home.
This year, we are in the middle of the Trinity Forest, 90 minutes from a store or restaurant, with an aunt and uncle I hadn’t seen in 20 years. A few other people I’ve never met will drop by, and I will be able to cook a few of my favorite dishes, and I’ll think about my daughter cooking and laughing with her friends at her sober living house, my mother in her house in San Diego stirring her special gravy, and my son in Canada grading papers and not even thinking about pumpkin pie.
I treasure our memories of Thanksgiving with family and friends sitting down in our patio enjoying a southern California Thanksgiving, but now the memories of a nontradtional Thanksgiving are making a place in our hearts and I am grateful to have them.
Happy Thanksgiving.
