Thanksgiving always seems to be good fodder for blog posts, whether they be of the nostalgic or culinary variety. And this year is no exception.
I miss Toronto like crazy. Seriously, sometimes in fits of homesickness I wonder if I should have stayed there unemployed rather than moving here to take a job. Oh, sure, reality eventually sets in when I realize how much I love my damn job and how little I actually hate the small-town Midwestern life, but I do miss Hogtown dearly. But the one time of year that always made me second-guess moving there in the first place was Thanksgiving. I had four Thanksgivings across the border, and they were hard. I’m not sure I realized just how hard until I came back. One of the perks of moving back to the Midwest is that I am now close enough to Chicago to go back to my old Thanksgiving routine.
Unfortunately, my old Thanksgiving routine is no more. Gone are the days of big dinners at my aunt’s house, and nights on the town the day after. Most of the cousins are now married off and procreating. So my weekend is more about making lunch dates downtown with toddlers when my train gets in, and packing up the car for a trip to Green Bay to see the twins I haven’t met yet and the cousinlets I haven’t seen in more than 2 years. One of them, at 6 years of age, remembers the monkey noises I made on the monkey bars when she was 4. Her little sister channels my grandmother with eerie authenticity.
And even through the cold/flu/sinus infection I’ve brought home with me (courtesy of one half of that set of twins), the memory of a redheaded 2-year-old lighting up on a Sunday morning as she notices you in the room and exclaims, “<Wahooty> is awake!” makes me unbelievably thankful.
I give thanks for my job. I give thanks to the people who took care of me when I didn’t have one. I give thanks for my beautiful new nephew. And I give thanks for a family that remembers that they love me, no matter how long I go without visiting them.
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