A Thanksgiving adventure – Thanksgiving itself!
Thanksgiving is going to be different this year. This is my first year being single in half a decade, and thanks to the COVID Pandemic it’s also the first year that I can’t travel, and don’t have any friends still in town. I’m flying solo, have a ton of vacation to burn, and am feeling energetic...
Thursday, 26-Nov-2020
This year sucks.
I mean, okay. It doesn’t, actually. I’ve had some amazing personal growth, experiences, and I’m actually doing pretty okay, all things considered.
But certain aspects of this year really do suck. Like, they suck so much.
I love Thanksgiving. I love seeing everyone, feeding everyone, and I love the fact that it’s so tradition-oriented… I don’t have to wonder what I should be cooking, or what I should be doing… it’s pretty straight forward. Make a turkey, some stuffing, eat it all while talking with friends and family I haven’t seen in ages, and then nap on the couch.
Ideally by a fire. Probably after having a glass of some interesting drink.
But this year… that can’t quite happen.
At my office, we have a map out in the front of the building. States are marked either green or red, depending on how many positive COVID tests they have, as a percentage of all tests administered. Over the weeks, the map’s gone from mostly green, to mixed, to a bit of red, and now it’s almost completely red.
When someone visits a state marked red, that’s okay… but it’s one more tick-mark on the checklist of “do I have to isolate for 14 days?”… and with all the other issues we’re having that means that if I left Oregon, and saw anyone else, I couldn’t go back into the office for at least 14 days.
My friends in Portland were off with their families, extended well past my little social bubble.
So, I’m home alone for Thanksgiving, for the first time ever.
So I cooked an amazing meal, set up a video call, and visited virtually with as many family members as I could 🙂
My meal was, admittedly, 95% pre-bought.
I had to cook all of it, of course, and I did make a few of the courses myself, but the majority of the dishes were bought from the Multnomah County Whiskey Library. Not… quite the place I’d expected to get a Thanksgiving dinner… but then again, I’d kind of expected to be having Thanksgiving with friends in Oklahoma or California this year. Or, at least the most recent plan of going to visit my Dad and StepMom is Arizona.
But plans and expectations aside, I made do, and had an excellent time.
Turkey, stuffing, squash, brussel sprouts, everything was laid out and enjoyed while chatting with everyone over Zoom. You know, it was really nice. And I’ll admit… being able to just clean everything up quickly afterward, and then pass out on the couch by the fire, after a nice Thanksgiving walk?
There are some traditions that you can keep anywhere, and anytime.