Thanksgiving

In my opinion, Thanksgiving is the hardest holiday to endure overseas. Firstly, let's not discount that it isn't a holiday here. Secondly, it's a holiday intended to be spent with family eating moist turkey and watching football (at least if you're a Cowboys fan like my father).

Most of my Thanksgiving memories center on meals eaten at my paternal grandparents home where their long table was covered with dish after dish of vegetables, fruit and turkey (and I know all about the dishes as I was almost always relegated to washing them along with numerous other lady family members as my grandparents did not have a dishwasher). My grandmother's deep freezer, which was situated in a nook of her kitchen, was always laden with every kind of pie imaginable. I usually skipped the pie and stuck to Cool Whip which she always let me eat by the spoonful straight from the tub, something my mother NEVER permitted.

Last year the kiddos and I were on our own, and we traveled to the Black Forest where we ate pumpkin soup and goose in the company of strangers. Though those strangers dulled the pain of being alone and gave the appearance of togetherness, they didn't provide that sense of family needed to make Thanksgiving feel comfortable and easy (though I thankfully had no cleaning up to do).

This year, the kiddos and I counted our blessings in that J was with us, but even his presence could not fill the gap left by not being with family. Since our oven is the size of an easy bake oven, cooking a turkey was not a possibility which was almost enough to make me throw in the towel on the whole holiday.

Instead of wallowing in the brown gravy, we picked ourselves up by our boot straps and decided to go to the mess hall to share Thanksgiving with our other family, our military brothers and sisters: brothers and sisters who are also far from family.

After a hearty meal, we counted our many blessings one by one, named them, and were thankful for what the Lord hath done.

Kiddos in front of red, white and blue ice sculptures of eagles

J with our kiddos in the mess hall's lobby

Settling in to eat all of the wonderful offerings including lobster tails, crab legs, filet mignon, roast beef, turkey, goose and wild game!

Thanksgiving is also a time when officers and senior enlisted servicemembers serve their troops, something J and I have both done. A seemingly innocuous gesture means much to soldiers.