Thanksgiving - whose tradition?

It's been over a week since my last entry, for which I can only offer the excuse that nothing of interest has happeend here beyond coughs, trips to the doctor and the usual mundane happenings that occur in a family home. This family's Thanksgiving, however, is not typical of what I've been led to believe happens in most normal American homes.

Being British, I never grew up with the Thanksgiving traditiion. I experienced my first Thanksgiving with DH during our first year together, when I was pregnant with DD1. We created our own traditional Thanksgiving dinner of roast turkey breast, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans with almonds, carrots and cranberry sauce, followed by apple or pumpkin pie. This is a meal we both enjoy and we do save it for just once a year. It takes a long time to prepare and a short time to eat but we've continued it as our family has grown. We seldom have company because we a) have no family within 3000 miles with whom to share the holiday and b) we presume that everyone else does. (I suppose that this is more typical nowadays than in the past with families becoming more and more separated by distance. For us it has been so for 17 years.)

The reality of our Thanksgiving now though, is that I often feel it's all a bit pointless without friends and family for whom to dress up and get out the best china. When the children were little, it became "wear what you like day" so we even had them in Halloween costumes one year, and they helped prepare the food and set the table and we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on television all morning. Sadly, that happy phase didn't last long. Things change and kids grow up. The biggest cause for upset to me these days is the fact that DH and I are the only two of the five of us who have any interest in eating a Thanksgiving dinner.

Our three children have become unwilling participants. They don't have cousins to play and argue with, nor do they have doting aunts, uncles and grandparents to fuss over them and say "haven't you grown!". They have no need or desire to dress up, be on their best behaviour or to help with preparations and clean-up. Worst of all, they all hate the food! DD1 likes stuffing, mashed potato and pie. DS will eat stuffing, potato and possibly a single green bean or carrot and he will eat pie. DD2 likes egg nog. That's it. She doesn't like any part of the meal at all - not the meat, not the potatoes, not even the pie. Nothing. This so-called "fussy" or "picky" eating might have been dismissed as a phase when they were under 7 years old, but it's become ridiculous. DD1 is vegetarian, but at 15 puts only enough food on her plate to feed a healthy two-year-old. DS is not vegetarian but dislikes turkey. Of the three, he at least makes the effort to try to taste everything on the table. DD2 is a lost cause at this point. At 12 years old I doubt she's going to change but frankly I don't want to listen to her say the food is horrible and watch her eating a sandwich.

For me, the Thanksgiving meal should be like an English Christmas, without the presents. It should be a social, happy time and an occasion to eat good home-cooked food in good company. In reality, for me, it's just another day with extra work. Nothing to look forward to. I do it because DH and I enjoy the meal, but apart from DH taking charge of cooking the green beans, I do all the cleaning, shopping, preparation, cooking..... and then I get to spend another hour or more in the kitchen afterwards cleaning it all up again and wondering what to do with the leftovers! The kids would just as soon have pizza and watch cartoons or go on facebook.

No. Thankful as I am for the holiday, I don't like Thanksgiving.

An inkling of insight

There are times when I have wondered what it must be like to get old, but until recently, I've never had any real insight into what it must really be like. Last night I had a dream that my sister took my place at a reunion of sorts of some of my old friends. I was in a 'fly-on-the-wall' position so I looked enviously on, wishing I had been there. At some point I realised that as well as my friends, there were some of our relatives too and that was when I realised that this mythical reunion must have occurred several years ago because two of the relatives had been dead some time.

I woke up with a sense of unease, not at missing seeing my friends (in fact by then I couldn't even remember which friends they were) but at the realisation that so many of the adults I knew as a child are no longer around. It was at that moment that I realised that a stage of life I have yet to reach is that of being one of the oldest generation. I try to imagine how my grandma must have felt. From when she was born, the youngest of six, she was the baby of the family - and was happy to be so. She was close to her mother and really didn't want to leave home. In fact she and my grandad started married life living with her parents, and later moved to a house down the street. For the first forty years of her life it was thus. The war changed everything of course. They had to leave Walthamstow because of the bombing - her parents went one way and she went another with her children. More changes occurred in the next twenty years - she lost both her parents, her brother and her oldest sister, but she still had most of her contemporaries and was still the youngest in her generation. I suppose at that time, she too realised that all her parents' contemporaries were gone, but she still had her older sisters, husband, children and grandchildren.

Having always been the baby of the family and been well cared for, I wonder how she felt at being one of the oldest generation. Perhaps she didn't feel that she was that old. During the early 1980s her world was turned over when she lost her remaining sisters, her husband and elder daughter and it was at that point that suddenly she found herself with no-one to look up to, no-one who shared her memories and no-one of her own age. Surely that must be the hardest stage of life altogether.

Coughs and sneezes spread diseases

Never was a truer word said this year. I can't believe the amount of sickness that's around at the moment. My family doesn't usually succumb to everything that's doing the rounds, so this comes as a shock to all of us. Right now I have three children who have collectively suffered varying degrees of coughs, sneezes, fevers, aches and pains over the past ten days. Added to which, I have caught it all from them and have been coughing and aching and feeling unwell for the past four days. Altogether, they have spent 8 days at home, which would have been 10 but for there being two days that school was closed. It's not over yet though - DS will be home again tomorrow since he was sent home from school with a fever today. DD2 is making a good recovery and is already back in full school mode, albeit with a persistent cough. DD1 I'm still not sure about. It's wearing, but none of us seriously ill, and for that I am grateful.

Today I found out that it's possible to have swine flu without having a fever and without even knowing you have it - it affects people in different ways so for all I know, we've all got it. Or not. Who knows? The school nurse's office was full of sick children when I went to pick up DS and the doctors' offices are busy with suspected swine flu patients so I'm not running off for a diagnosis unless the situation becomes dire. I called about seasonal flu and swine flu vaccinations today and there are none to be had. Healthy kids aren't a priority and there's a shortage of vaccines. It doesn't bother me. If they have H1N1 and it isn't affecting them badly it'll help with their immunities. Let's hope.

Busy times

First things first. This is a favourite photograph of my mum and my grandma. It was taken in (I think) about 1979 when Mum was about the age I am now (!!) and Grandma was about 78. Mum died about seven years later, at 58. Today is and always will be Grandma's birthday. She was born on 4th November 1900 and died aged 90 on 15th April, 1991. It still doesn't seem that long ago. She was a huge and very important part of my life and she is still missed. Best grandma ever.

Yesterday I was suffering from a distinct lack of sleep, due to being awoken at 1am and being told that DD2 had a temp of 101F. She was fine - she slept and the fever had gone by morning, but I stayed awake the rest of the night having swine-flu nightmares. Yesterday was also parent-teacher conference today. In the event I did actually get to talk to DS's teachers, but it was a 'student-led' conference and we were there for well over an hour. At least I didn't have to wait outside the room for twenty minutes while the previous parent 'overran'.

Last Friday was DH's birthday, and DD2 baked him a cake from scratch, then made the icing (with sugar, butter, cream cheese, chocolate chips and heavy cream, no less) and then decorated it.



The only problem was that she didn't really like the cream cheese icing and I ate far more of that delicious cake than I should have!

Saturday of course, was Halloween, and I spent all day helping DD2 make her costume - also from scratch. She had a good idea but no idea how to execute it. We borrowed two hula hoops because at this time of year we couldn't find any to buy (they are probably thought of as summer toys). We had some leftover vinyl fabric so I used it to make her a bag for her candy. Contrary to what some may believe, Halloween costumes in America are not required to be spooky, creepy, scary or gruesome. It's all just what we British call 'fancy dress' - anything goes. So here are the three Halloween costumes for 2009.

This is an American high-school student's idea of dressing like a schoolgirl. When I pointed out that she is a school girl, she said 'not in a uniform'. So there you are.



This is the one we spent all day making, and which has now been taken apart because the hula hoops had to be returned.



Finally, DS wanted to be Zorro - which was great, except that most people didnt seem to know who Zorro was! We purchased the hat and sword, we already had the mask and cloak (to which I added reflective tape for running about in the dark) and I bought new black trousers and a black shirt, thereby adding to his winter wardrobe at the same time.



The weather was quite warm on Halloween night although the rain came during the evening, causing it to come to an end earlier than it might have, given that it was a Saturday. Unfortunately, when DS got up the next day, complaining that his eye hurt, we found that a tick had embedded itself in his lower eyelid, among the eyelashes. It was a nasty and painful experience getting that removed. It was a small tick and so now we have to hope the poor kid doesn't get Lyme disease.

In addition to all of the above, I've been working on my window hanging. I really have been doing it all the wrong way roound, but since I've been making it up as I go along, and buying fabric as needed, it's somewhat without plan or design. I'll post a picture when it's finished. While I've been sewing and cutting, I've been watching 'Kingdom' (the first series) and 'Doc Martin' (the first series) on Hulu. Then I found out that only the first series of each is on Hulu and so with only one episode of each left to watch, I'm bereft. I'll have to get some more dvd's I suppose.

The other bit of news is that I've downloaded Skype to my computer and had my first face-to-face Skype conversation with a friend in England on Sunday. That was fun.