Thanksgiving

When I lived in Boston, we would spend pretty much every holiday at Mrs. Henderson's house. Mrs. Henderson was my parents' old (meaning both previous and elderly) landlady, and my family along with 10-15 other guests would gather at her huge, antique-filled house for Thanksgiving. We would all sit at one long, silk-tablecloth-clad table and have Thanksgiving dinner. Before we moved to Lexington, Mrs. Henderson passed away, and so this tradition died with her. My past 5 or so Thanksgivings have all consisted of upwards of 20 people gathered at several different tables situated all around my house. We have a sort of buffet line that goes through our kitchen, and then the guests take their plates to whichever they'd like. Another tradition that came with this new way of celebrating the holiday is Black Friday shopping. You can tell me it's violating the holiday or promoting excessive consumerism all you like, but I love Black Friday shopping. My mom and I, along with some of her coworkers and sometimes one or two of my friends drive up to Cincinnati at about 7 PM on Thanksgiving evening and shop the entire night before coming home around 6:30 in the morning. It's quite the extreme sport. 

This year, my mom told me that we will be having over 30 guests at our house, and so much of our dinner will be catered in order to save time and effort. While this might irritate some and appear to be infringing upon tradition of Thanksgiving, it's important to remember that neither my mother nor most of the guests who will be attending were born in the United States. Therefore, this deep sense of family fostered by American holiday tradition  does not apply to them, and frankly I think it doesn't apply to many Americans. I spent the first 12 years of my life having a formal Thanksgiving, and besides, I see my family every day--is it really so wrong to spend November 28th watching all the Thanksgiving episodes of Gossip Girl?