Thanksgivings Past

I'm very excited to be in America for this coming Thanksgiving. It's always been my favorite holiday for many reasons - no stress of finding the right gift for people, good food, lots of games and downtime. I like the fall colors and the food is just wonderful. I was thinking about Thanksgiving and how cool it is that I'm back in America for this holiday and I realized that it's my first Thanksgiving in America since 2002! Six years of non-American Thanksgivings! So here's a review of my Thanksgiving experiences.

Thanksgiving 2003 - Holmsted Manor in England. It was 3 weeks after Torben and I became a couple and I had a lot of fun introducing him to Thanksgiving. It was the middle of our lecture phase of our DTS so we were learning a lot and getting ready to leave just a few weeks later for outreach. Torben wanted to find out the history of Thanksgiving so he took someone's video camera around the Manor and asked the Americans what Thanksgiving is about. He got a variety of answers, some of them crazy...eg. Thanksgiving celebrates the genocide of Indians...um...

Thanksgiving 2004 - Back at Holmsted Manor, but leading this time. My friend Dorothy and I took charge of organizing the Thanksgiving festivities and we had lots of fun! It was a little stressful but still good. It was a few weeks before leading our first outreach. Destination: Ukraine!

Thanksgiving 2005 - Copenhagen, Denmark. We were living there for a few months after we got married. I was a bit depressed to be missing Thanksgiving that year. Without me knowing, Torben talked to his coworker and they organized a Thanksgiving dinner for us. So I had Thanksgiving that year with a whole group of Danes and I got to explain the history of my favorite holiday...and I didn't mention genocide

Thanksgiving 2006 - Zhytomir, Ukraine. We had led an outreach that involved a few weeks in Zhytomir, a smaller city west of Kiev, and we met and became friends with an American girl named Liz. So we arranged for a joint Thanksgiving celebration. Her mom came from America and brought sweet potatoes (they don't grow over there) so we had sweet potato casserole! We ended up with a large group of Americans, Ukrainians, and of course a Dane!

Thanksgiving 2007 - Kiev, Ukraine. I gathered many of the Americans on the YWAM Kiev base and hosted Thanksgiving in our little apartment. That Thanksgiving was the best of all of my foreign Thanksgivings because I really knew all of the people who were there. They were all good friends so it was cozy and a lot of fun. Plus, I made a pumpkin pie from scratch so I was very proud of myself :)

So now, Thanksgiving 2008, we'll be in a cabin in North Georgia with most of my immediate family (the Ohio sisters couldn't make it sadly). And that has been the big thing missing from the past 6 Thanksgivings - my family. That and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade :) It's going to be great to be with everyone again and get the true American Thanksgiving experience!