Thanksgiving

It's still days away from Thanksgiving...days away if you reside in America. Here in France Thanksgiving doesn't exist of course - no Native Americans to make peace with. Around Halloween I felt pretty nostalgic, and now I feel more waves of nostalgia crashing down on me as my American friends talk of 'Thanksgiving break' and 'Turkey Day' and 'Black Friday' deals - not that I am in favor of Black Friday - I did it like three times and that was enough for me....

I want turkey, ham, cranberry sauce, my grandmother's stuffing and homemade gravy, candied yams with brown sugar, butter, and marshmallows, the deviled eggs that my grams always allows me to make, green beans with probably too much salt, mashed potatoes with entirely too much butter and sweet iced tea to top off my meal....yum!

I'm not a huge holiday person in terms of throwing parties and buying presents and cooking for five hours for a meal consumed in one. However, I miss being a part of the American holiday season that runs nonstop from October through March, beginning with Halloween and ending in St. Patrick's Day. I miss loads of left over candy from Halloween, Thanksgiving food followed by football games, and I know I shall miss familiar Christmas carols blasting over the radio, 'What a Wonderful Life' & 'The Grinch who Stole Christmas' on television, New Years' from Times Square while I countdown midnight in Mississippi, hating on Valentine's Day by anti-celebrating with single friends, and pinching my friends because they forgot their green in March.

Perhaps I wouldn't feel so detached if I had a group of American friends with which to recreate Thanksgiving in France. Perhaps I would be fine if I knew that I'd be coming back to America at the end of December. Just maybe I might not miss the Holidays so much if I stayed off the internet and facebook.
But the reality is that I don't have a group of American friends, or any friends here for that matter, I'm missing all the holidays I love because I'm here till May livin' my dream, and being on the internet as much as I am helps me stay in contact with everyone stateside.

So, what's a girl to do? Well she's going to go see Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (twice)! At least that's the plan -if I can't have my holiday day every month I shall find alternate reasons to celebrate !!!

~Tam in Toulouse