Thanksgiving in New Zealand

Growing up...Thanksgiving Day was always my favorite day of the year. Even though the only original participant from my childhood is now, myself, it still is a time when I remember all the other Thanksgiving dinners I shared with my loved ones who are now deceased, or half way round the world. But, all the new participants I hosted this Thanksgiving in New Zealand...found that they think we should continue the tradition in New Zealand...on the Friday here, making it simultaneous with the American Thursday. I agree. It raises the thankful consciousness of the entire world.

There were twelve at my Thanksgiving Dinner this year...and, we had a wonderful time...and, I was privileged to share pumpkin pie with many who had never had pumpkin pie before. Kiwis eat a lot of pumpkin. They have however, never caught on to the sweet serving of pumpkin in a pie...they are almost unanimously wowed by the new taste experience even if I have to coerce some of them for the first taste.

The day started for me at 7am creating my own bread crumbs for the stuffing. There are no packages of bread crumbs to be had here...but, this was decidedly to my favor in the taste department. Also, there was no pumpkin in a can...so I had to cut, cook and press my own pumpkin...which made the pie...divine. Using my grandmother's recipe from the 1950's I was able to give everyone here a taste of something...absolutely unique. It was a success.

I had expected to really miss my grandmother and my mother...traditional helpers for the huge meal preparation, but I had a part Maori friend who stepped in and filled the culinary gaps one can feel when stranded in the kitchen all alone...I was not...I was befriended, propped, and complete with her natural easy going nature of preparing meals for the masses. I was really thankful for that.

It is hard for me to discuss the turkey...I have become almost a vegetarian, having grown a couple of Turkeys last year for slaughter that I could not kill...as they had become my pets, my friends, and not at all like the terrible myths I had been told...how stupid they are...they are not...and so, I challenged my consciousness by buying a store bought turkey for my guests to consume and avoided my own consciousness for the sake of my meat eating guests. I do not want to force my own choices upon anyone, but I will be thinking hard about a mock turkey presentation for next year. It is hard to serve my friends to my friends to consume.

So, what am I thankful for? So many things have changed in this world since my first Thanksgiving memory...since I was just a little girl bellying up to a feast that always included everyone in my family and if not, those who were not there would call after dinner on the old dial-up phone and we would take turns talking to them, consigned to the length of a curly cord that would be wound into knots after tugging its length to reach for another morsel of food while exchanging quick stories of progress or not. The way things were, are simply the way things are not now...while a few of my guests text messaged all the way through dinner. We have become multi taskers and more private in a public sort of way. I am thankful for technology, but not during dinner. And yet...are we not now more capable of sharing immediately and simultaneously whatever we experience without having to chew?

And this is my point...the chewing of food is just like that of a social experience...it needs chewing upon in order to digest...those who are busy communicating in the middle of the experience...run the risk of indigestion later...but, that is again, their choice. However, what I am most thankful for are those who are left...that look at one another, communicate with each other and allow nothing to interfere with the moment they are in together, thereby leaving the other left to feel like the best piece of pumpkin pie ever served up. I am thankful for that, I really am.