If you would have told me I would be celebrating Thanksgiving in China one year ago, I would have laughed in your face. But today, I celebrated my 5th Thanksgiving away from my home and family in Alaska. In college, I had couldn’t go home because of basketball and spent the last four years celebrating the holiday with my best friend Danielle Simmons and her family in New York. At last year’s Thanksgiving, I thought for sure that I would be home for Thanksgiving this year, but what do you know, I’m celebrating it in China!
The last five years being away from home has made me realize that no matter where I go I find people that are my substitute family. Even though I miss my ‘real’ family in Alaska, I am blessed to have surrounded myself with people that I can call family. Back in New York, the Simmons’s family was my surrogate family and they always called me their adopted daughter. I spent every holiday besides Christmas at their house and they always welcomed me into their home.
Here in China I don’t have a specific family like the Simmons’s, but all of us foreign teachers have somehow bonded in some odd way and have shaped ourselves into somewhat of a family. This evening we celebrated our Thanksgiving together at a restaurant called The Swede & the Kraut. It was a Thanksgiving buffet with piles of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and all the good stuff… except the stuffing, which is nothing like Donna Simmons’s! We took up a long table of 17 and enjoyed a wonderful meal together. I stuffed my face until my stomach begged me to stop and topped it off with some pumpkin pie. But I sure missed my mom’s famous cheesecake and apple pie.
We have a tradition at Thanksgiving in my family. We always stand in a circle before we eat and we go around in a circle and everyone must say one thing they are thankful for. This year I didn’t get a chance to do this so I thought it fit to make a post about what I’m thankful for…
I am thankful for my loving family in Alaska, my friends from all over the country and world, my best friend Dani, my boyfriend Phillip, my extended family all over the country, my ‘family’ here in China and for my experiences in life that have brought me here today. I’m thankful to be spending my Thanksgiving in China, where my eyes have just begun to be opened to a different world. Happy Thanksgiving everyone and if you are unable to be with your family today, love the ones your with!
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