We are nearing my favorite holidays of the year – Thanksgiving and Christmas.
When I was a kid, Christmas won out, of course. What kid doesn’t love opening all of the presents? And as an adult, I admit that it is still at the top of the pack because I so enjoy watching the wonder in my child’s eyes as she opens her presents. In fact, I think I have more fun watching her now than I did unwrapping my presents as a child.
But Thanksgiving comes right behind it. For years, I chalked it up to the food. I mean, no other banquet comes close to the Thanksgiving spread, probably because those other banquets don’t have my mama’s cornbread dressing. I’m sure you’ve had good cornbread dressing, but you really haven’t lived until you’ve eaten my mom’s. I could eat it by the pan (and I’ve come close a few times.)
I was in college when I realized that there was more to it than the food.
My sophomore year of college I was fortunate enough to study aboard. A student at Harding University, I signed up to go to Harding University in England, better known as HUE, for a semester. I absolutely loved it.
We lived in the West End of London. We were in walking distance (or a short tube ride away) to the theaters, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Square and the British Museum.
For a kid who had grown up in Booneville, Arkansas, and always wanted to live in a big city, London was a giant playground. I really was in heaven.
Until Thanksgiving.
That semester abroad was the first time I’d ever been away from home for the holidays. And I was miserable.
I remember spending the day at Cambridge University. As part of our England experience, we traveled outside of London once a week to see more of the country. So on Thanksgiving, we found ourselves eating a lunch of pizza or fish and chips in the Cambridge cafeteria. We also had orange juice, which is as disgusting as you might imagine with pizza or fish and chips. But Mum, the sweet older lady who organized all of our trips, thought that orange juice was an important part of the American Thanksgiving, so she had gone to great trouble to make sure that we had that for our meal.
Her sweet gesture was just one of the many things that nearly brought me tears that day.
I called home three times on Thanksgiving, just so I could hear my mom’s voice. For the first time that semester, I was so homesick. I hated the thought that my entire family was together (even my oldest sister had made it home that year), and I was across the ocean. Briefly, I wished that I hadn’t signed up for the semester abroad — a sentiment that would pass and not reappear again during my trip.
It was while I was away during Thanksgiving that I realized WHY it meant so much to me. It wasn’t the food or the time off from school — it was my family. It was having my parents and my three sisters, along with their families, under one roof for a very special day.
It has been many years since that Thanksgiving in England (we won’t talk about how many years!), but the lesson comes back to me whenever the holidays roll around. Thanksgiving may be hectic as my little family squeezes in two Thanksgiving dinners (one with my family and one with my husband’s family), but we are so blessed to have so many people we love living 45 miles or so from us.
Now, could someone pass the dressing?
Arkansas Women Bloggers member Yavonda Chase writes about life, love and everything else at SimplyYavonda.com. She is a wife and mother who considers her daughter to be her greatest accomplishment. She was born in Kentucky and still cheers for the Kentucky Wildcats, but has lived in Arkansas for 30 years and proudly calls Central Arkansas home.
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