It’s finally here.
The celebration.
The food & fellowship.
Giving thanks for all the Lord has provided.
Each of the three Thanksgivings abroad have looked a little different.
Big City Backyard Thanksgiving Bash
My first Thanksgiving overseas was in a big city where nearly fifty Americans gathered to celebrate the special day of gratitude and remembrance that our passport country holds dear. There was a plethora of home-cooked food spread across a buffet table. Some children wore pilgrim costumes and others ran around barefoot taking turns on the swing in the back yard. A few of the local families with children were there too and we invited them to enjoy the different traditional dishes we feast on during this special day. The oven and burners in the kitchen were packed with dishes re-heating after they had been hauled thirty or forty-five minutes across the city so we could gather together. It had been a difficult year for many and for the country we were living in. Turmoil, gasoline shortages, disappointments, and the normal ups and downs of life. We ate until our bellies were more than full, we sang, and we smushed together in the backyard while someone snapped a photo of us from an upstairs window. Several hours later, I made a FaceTime call to my family and to the guy I had been talking to for a little over a month even though we hadn’t met in person. Spoiler alert: he’s now my husband :-).
Outdoor Thanksgiving with a Mountain Backdrop
Three years later, I found myself in a quiet town with only a few American families. We carefully transported the dishes we had proudly slaved over to one family’s house. There was a hodge podge of plastic dishwear, tupperwear, glass dishes, silicone, and a South Asian electric pressure cooker. The goal was just to get your dish there in one piece however you could and in whatever container you had on hand. I made a chocolate pie which was not thanksgiving-ish at all but it was something I knew how to make with ingredients I could find in our city so I considered it a win. The weather could not have been more perfect. A wooden kitchen table was hauled outside so we could lay out the spread, eat under the blue sky, and look at the mountains as the backdrop. Someone had managed to think ahead and bring paper plates from America that had the word “Thankful” on them in a beautiful brown cursive design. Before we prayed, we each said what we were thankful for. After lunch, the guys played basketball in the yard and later the twelve of us gathered for a photo together, complete with not one but two very pregnant mamas.
Cozy Indoor Thanksgiving
The next year, we found ourselves at the same house but it was a bit colder, so we opted for a day indoors with an electric space heater to keep us warm. Our little group of twelve had grown to twenty-three. There were still several families and many kids running around but we also had an awesome single girl too. We don’t have turkey available in our country but we had delicious BBQ chicken fresh off the grill outside, thanks to the guys. Stockings were already hung and Christmas lights twinkled from the tree in a corner of the room. My poor husband ended up missing the majority of the festivities since we had a car emergency. The roads can be pretty unkept so we ended up hitting a pothole, hearing a loud snap, and concluding something broke. Since it was just an ordinary day in our country, he drove forty-five minutes to the shop so it could be fixed. Thankfully, we saved him a plate of food and plenty of cookies. One of my friends drove from another city to stay with us and enjoy Thanksgiving together. She is an expert cook-from-scratch cook, which is what we all have to learn living overseas. Her contribution was a decadent cake with homemade marshmallow fluff icing. It was so pretty, we didn’t even want to cut into it. There were now three babies in the kitchen strapped to their mamas who were working and chatting away. The rest of the kids found superhero capes and masks, climbed a small mountain of dirt outside, and came up with some sort of game. We hung out all day and several hours later, needed a coffee break pick-me-up. Pretty soon, in typical South Asian fashion, we had a little tray of chai cups right in front of us, ready to be filled with coffee.
This week, my heart hasn’t been in the best place. I haven’t been filled with thanksgiving or taking Psalm 105 seriously:
Psalm 105:1 "Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name, make known among the nations what he has done."
I have been giving more attention to things that are completely out of my control than those tasks which I actually have power to steward well. I have been frustrated and unfocused. I certainly haven’t been abounding with thanksgiving.
Yesterday, I had enough and finally began making a list of everything I’m thankful for. I thanked God for those things or people or circumstances. As we reflect on previous thanksgivings and prepare for next Thursday, Thanksgiving 2021, may we be filled with gratitude.
Maybe you are with your family.
Maybe you are 7,000 miles away from them.
Maybe you are with family but friends are honestly easier to be around.
Whatever your circumstances, may we A B O U N D in T H A N K S G I V I N G!