Thanksgiving Surprises

Thanksgiving arrived, and it occurred to us that we really haven't celebrated this holiday in five years.  We have a harvest party every year in Tanzania: a unique combination of Thanksgiving, Halloween, and evidently some South American festival.  We have abundant food, we dress up, carve watermelons, and (the hispanic influence), we always have a piñata!  It has been the sweetest celebration.

The previous day, I had done my shopping.  I decided to buy the pre-made Pillsbury pie crusts.  I pulled them out of the little box, pressed them into the pie pan, poured in the filling and placed another one on top.  "I really love baking!  Thanks, America!"  I realized this was similar to two days earlier, when it was unusually warm and beautifully sunny and I had declared, "I love winter!"  At what point can you no longer call something actually homemade?! :)

Thanksgiving morning, I decided to get the Turkey ready for cooking.  Kate was my eager right-hand-gal.  She thought it was funny that the Turkey came packaged in such a nice plastic wrapping, and remarked about how funny it would be if they just let you go pick a live turkey outside the grocery store when you buy one, much like the market in Tanzania.

Carefully taking the plastic off, I opened the neck part to reach in an pull things out from the cavity, while Kate's eyes grew wide.  "Eww, mom!  What is that that you're pulling out of there?!"  and then, "Mom! I wouldn't reach my hand back in there if I were you!"  and then, "EWWWW!  Why is there a bag in there?!"  After all that amazement, I turned the turkey over to put it in the pan and rub some seasoning on.  "WHAT!  What is that red button thing on it?!"  That's the thermometer, darling. :)  "Does turkey taste like chicken?" she asks, hesitant.  Isn't every foreign meat supposed to taste like chicken anyways?!

We enjoyed a morning of games and snacks and finally sat down in the afternoon to our traditional meal.  Expectations were low, as this was new to many of my children, so they were more than overjoyed at the meal.

Except for Ben, who looked at all of it and asked, "Could I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?"

:)  Good thing turkey isn't the point of the day.  Our hearts were filled with thankfulness!

Living with People From Other Countries

I haven't blogged in over a year, I just found out!  I have had many, many blog posts in my mind and none that actually got out onto the paper properly.

This isn't meant to be serious or challenging or thought-provoking.  This is just my observations of my children as they re-enter a country they are supposed to be familiar with.

This is also not meant to minimize the reality and pain many people in this world face as immigrants to this, or any, country.  But the reality is, we have several seeming-immigrants in our immediate family that we take back and forth across the world.  We forget, because they blend in like everyone else, and we forget, because we know many of the things that are new to them.

Enter Halloween.  It has been five years since we have been in the States for Halloween, and while we had a Harvest Party every year in Tanzania with our friends, Ben in particular didn't have any idea about this particular day in America.  We had seen a drastic increase in horrible decorations in the neighborhood (to a 5-year-old immigrant, they were shocking.  To his 45-year-old mother, they were baffling).  All of a sudden we had the equivalent of Christmas decor, but ghoulish and ghastly: skeletons hanging from porches and inflatable ghosts.  On the actual day, we had decided to go to some friends' house who have something called a Night of Lights.  It is a beautiful celebration of the Light of the World, and it is a generous party for all the kids and their parents who venture out in the Montana cold.

So we had not anticipated being home for trick-or-treaters, although Dave grabbed a bag of candy just in case.  They showed up early, and because we had planned on being gone, we hadn't even bothered to explain what was going to happen to little Ben.  All of a sudden, we had an enormous dinosaur on our porch, ringing our doorbell.  We opened the door, and Ben's eyes about popped out, staring as we handed him some candy to put in the dinosaur's bucket.  We closed the door.  Then, "There is a tiny witch on our porch!" and bigger eyes.  Then a pirate, a dad dressed as a hatching duckling (!), Thing 1 and Thing 2, and Ben kept handing out candy, not asking for any (I don't think he realized he was supposed to have some :), also not thinking he should have any kind of costume on.  He was so delighted that all these special kids in costumes were coming to our house! :)  After about 1/2 hour, and while we were getting ready to leave, he decided right on the spot he wanted to be Captain America.  So his sister grabbed a pizza box, cut a circle out of it, drew on circles and a star, Ben grabbed his crayons, frantically colored it in, and said sister made an arm band out of duct tape in the car on the way to the party.  Beautiful.  It probably won't cut it for another year, but it did for this year. :)

We just added this to our humorous repertoire of incidents with these children who have spent most of their lives in a 3rd world country.  Their utter amazement at garage door openers, their confusion at trying to figure out what is automatic and what isn't (mostly in bathrooms), and how they stand still, unsure, when I hand them paper towels the first few times after arriving back and tell them to "Dry your hands," and they look around to see where to dry them and how they can hold this paper in their hands carefully so they don't get it wet. :)  And none of us can get over how friendly and efficient government offices can be, how fast food gets to the table after you order, or any other number of luxuries.  

The beauty of having the privilege of living in many places. :)