The first year I was invited by Dr. Bray, my post-doc mentor, to come to his place and celebrate thanksgiving with his family and some friends from the UK, one year I was invited by Susan Mancuso's family (still have great memories of that year having tea with Susan's mother and her 3 Irish sisters), the year we were selling our house and had to do open house we went to our friends Aamir and Becky and celebrated thanksgiving with them and Becky's parents and had a great time as well, and one year we went to my in laws in Dallas. But the other years we had a huge international gathering. Before I met Marc I organized it by myself in my appartment/condo, and after Marc and I continued the tradition together.
I have always loved Thanksgiving and having all our friends over. We cooked the main meal but everybody else would bring the side dishes. I would make for funny combinations. We had dried fish from Japan, dumplings from China and India, soup from Pakistan, cake from Italy, cookies from the Czech Republic, and of course my own Dutch contributions like appeltaart and boterkoek.
Because we didn't exactly know what would happen with our adoption travel we didn't invite friends this year and although I do feel a bit sad about it, after crossing 16 times zones twice in one week, just 5 days ago, I am very thankful that it was a quiet weekend with just Marc and I and my parents. We had a smaller version of thanksgiving dinner, walked the dog, watched a movie and just relaxed. A great day anyway.
However, I am already thinking about thanksgiving next year. No matter whether we'll invite friends or not, next year will be an international gathering with just our little family alone. Imagine, a family of 4 with 3 different nationalities! I am sure we'll add Russian goodies to the menu. But the best part of it will be to have our two little kids with us. We have waited so long for this but I am more than convinced that it was worth every single second of it. So.... thanks for that!
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