Post-thankful reflections. + a contest!

I realize that for most people Thanksgiving is one of those reassurance holidays. You know, the kind where friends and familiars return to the same family dining room and eat the traditional meal that hasn´t really changed since the introduction of green-bean casserole in the mid-fifties. A heart-warming practice to be sure.
But Thanksgiving doesn´t really mean that to me any more. Since I left for college, each Thanksgiving has brought me to an increasingly forigen, yet always friendly, dining table, and I find myself looking forward to whatever bizarre holiday hijinx are in store for me next year.

Freshman year I ate at home in Dallas, which was not too odd except for the inclusion of Mr. Travis, my quiz team coach from high school, at our dinner table (appropriate since I spent three years of school eatting my lunches in his classroom) and my Great-great Aunt Rosana preforming a slightly racist skit from her childhood as we were all eatting mint M&Ms after dinner.

Sophomore year my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Gary invited me out to Palm Desert to spend Thanksgiving with them at their "spa," which fortunately was not a hoity-toity place where everyone wears cucumbers on their eyes and has a personal trainer, but a little desert community based around a few hot springs pools and populated by bunch of retired people living in mobile homes and driving around on four-wheelers. We ate dinner at a card table with the neighbors from the next mobile-home over, and in the morning got up early to hit golfballs across a makeshift course of dirt, rocks and coffee cans. We got one golf club each. I think I also almost killed myself on theif four-wheeler. But I couldn´t have picked a cooler way to spend my first Thanksgiving away from home. And they fed me all the pie I could have asked for.

Junior year I was deep in screenwriting assignments and couldn´t get away for a few days to spend with my aunt and uncle out in the desert again, but my old roommate Ed invited me to his grandma´s house in Compton, East L.A. This would not only be my first Thanksgiving with black people, it would be my first Thanksgiving without any other white people. Well, except that Ed´s last name is White, which is clearly instant comedy. But none of that really mattered -- I have never been accepted into another family more quickly. For dinner we had all the traditional trimmings, as well as maccoroni and cheese, which I thought was an excellent addition to the dinner-spread. I also learned how to make the best peanutbetter and jelly sandwiches ever, and Ed and I got to teach his grandma how to properly put on a backpack, something we were both amazed that she had never done before. Ed played guitar, I played with his cousins, we gave most of our leftovers to a homeless guy at the gas station, and I ate the rest of it for lunch the next day.

Senior year (that´d be this one), I spent in Granada at a fancy Spanish resturant where the staff tried their valient best to serve us a real American dinner. My study-abroad program set the whole deal up and they told everyone to "look nice," which isn´t exactly a formal dress code, and was interpreted in many different ways, from tee-shirts to ties, from prom dresses and shalls to mini dresses and go-go boots. It was my first Thanksgiving served with Fanta and bi-lingual blessings. For many of the kids there it also seemed to be their first Thanksgiving served with as much wine as they wanted, and there was a lot of giggling and a ridiculous ammount of picture taking. I didn´t even know everyone who I ended up being pulled over to pose with. But the dinner was pretty good. The best part was actually the quiche, not surprising since the Spaniards can do amazing things with eggs. We were also served chunks of tuna, broccoli soup, and each person at the table got a different, (often unidentifiable) chunk of the turkey. One of my friends sitting next to me was too distressed about being away from home and familiar food to eat much of anything except bread and mashed potatoes, but I told her that a forigen Thanksgiving just something I was used to by now.

I called my family when I got home around midnight, and was happy (thankful?) to find that Thanksgiving hasn´t settled into a run over there, either. The dog was running around with stitches on her nose from being attacked by a squirrel and our dinner guests included not just Grandma Betty, Aunt Rosana and Mr. Travis, but three Japanese exchange students from my sister´s school.

And I´m thankful that there are always some things you can count on, like turkey and mashed yams and friendship. But that´s not what this holiday was always about. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by strangers in a strange land who were able to get by thanks to the kindness of people they hardly knew. These past few years have brought home that point to me -- Thanksgiving isn´t completely about the familiar, it´s about the strange . . . and the stranger. I think every table should have at least one.


ALSO!!
I´m starting to get tired of my beard, which just made its Internet debut yesterday. So I´m starting a new contest. Just tell my what I should do with my beard (keep it? shave it? shave one side of it? braid it?) and why. The best answer not only gets to see their fashion advice come true, but I´ll send out some more Spanish comics to the winner. Game starts now!