"End of An Era" - Beck, 2000

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. To me, Thanksgiving is family and friends and good food without the all the materialism of Christmas. It’s the “American” thing that I miss the most about living in Britain.

John always makes sure we have some type of American food for Thanksgiving dinner. Tonight we’ve had tacos. Bless him for that. But sadly, it’s not the same as Thanksgiving dinners of the past.

I can’t help but remember the first time in my life that I didn’t have a traditional Thanksgiving meal. It was when I was living in New York City, in the late-80s. My friend Penny came up from Houston to spend the holiday weekend with me. We had great plans for Thanksgiving Day. We were going to walk across Manhattan to see the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in person. Then we were going to hop on a Metro-North train at Grand Central and head up to Katonah, NY for Thanksgiving dinner with my sister-in-law’s family. It was going to be great. Despite the fact that the Macy’s parade was just across Midtown from where I lived, I’d never been to see it before. And Penny had never met Sue and her family in Katonah.

Penny loved New York City as much as I did. I couldn’t wait for her to arrive and share the sights and sounds with me.

She arrived on the Wednesday afternoon. We went out for a pizza. Then, about 10pm, Penny began to feel feverish. By midnight, it was obvious she was really ill. I let her use my bedroom, and I slept on the pull-out bed in the living room. And that’s where she spent the entire weekend…only getting well just in time to head for the airport late Sunday afternoon.

So on Thanksgiving that year, I was sitting in the living room with Mac (my little Westie), eating a Stouffer’s Turkey Tetrazzini from the freezer and watching the parade on TV. I was feeling a little sorry for myself, too.

And somehow I knew that it was the end of an era, at least as far as traditional Thanksgivings go.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Janet