Thanksgiving - what are you thankful for?

Am I the only American in here....?: )

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm taking the day off to enjoy a delicious meal with my husband and with friends. This is one of my favourite days of the year for gathering with family (though I don't usually make the journey back to Texas). For the first couple of years I lived in the UK, I just went about my day as normal and didn't make an effort to celebrate Thanksgiving. I ended up spending the day in tears at work, feeling that something truly special was happening back home and that I was missing it. Then I'd get home from work and call my family and I'd be sick with jealousy when they told me about all the wonderful food they were eating.

So I decided that from there forward I would take the day off every year and make this a tradition in my newfound British life!

When I talk about Thanksgiving, a lot of people don't know what it is or why we celebrate it. Thanksgiving is one of the world's many harvest festivals, and you can read about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

To me it's much more light-hearted than Christmas because there's no pressure about gifts. It's simply a time to come together and enjoy good company and good food.

The day is primarily based around the meal. Families come together from near and far to enjoy this special meal together, and since it's such a huge feast you'll usually find a handful of other people at your table, as it's important to welcome in all of those people who may not live near their family. Before the meal you will often find that people take turns sharing something that they're grateful for. Usually people take turns, one-by-one, moving around the table. It can be very short & sweet, or it can be emotional and heart-felt. The Christian families will often say an elaborate prayer giving thanks for the many wonderful things they've experienced in the last year.

The meal is pretty much exactly like what the British would expect at a Christmas meal. Turkey, ham, stuffing/dressing, cranberry sauce, bread sauce, sweet potatoes...(plus all kinds of other vegetables and bread). These basics are then interpreted by region within the US. For dessert - pumpkin pie, pecan pie, chocolate cream pie, coconut cream pie, apple pie, you name it! But it's gotta be pie (in my neck of the woods anyway). 

I have one British friend and one Finnish friend joining us tomorrow. We're doing a non-traditional meal, though still doing a Thanksgiving theme. We're having:

-- turkey & bacon enchiladas with chipotle sauce
-- arroz a la mexicana (mexican rice)
-- black charro beans
-- homemade salsa and pico de gallo
-- homemade cranberry salsa
-- tequila!

Having grown up near Mexico, the Mexican influence is obviously very easy to spot! If you want to know more about what these things are, I'm happy to explain! The only thing I haven't planned is dessert, mainly for lack of time. I plan to go pick up some homemade custard slices from a Portuguese woman at the market shortly.

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving... I would like to ask each of you reading this - what are you thankful for?

I'm thankful for the extra few weeks of warmer weather that we had this year. Last year it got pretty cold by mid-October, and I'll take as many extra days of 12 and 13 degree weather as possible!  I'm also really thankful for the amazing opportunity I had 7 months ago to move into a new job, which brought me to talk about autism and connected me with a great group of people at TreeHouse, and all of the wonderful people I've met here in the community and on Facebook and Twitter. Nothing has inspired me so much in a very long time!