Thankful

I missed Canadian Thanksgiving due to travels but I am hoping to still secure an invite to an American one. Considering I don't know any Americans in London I may just have to re-create a Thanksgiving dinner on any random day – like an un-birthday (does anyone remember that from Alice & Wonderland?!). I miss my annual Thanksgiving dinner as it is a time when I gather some of my great friends for a sit down meal and before the start of it we do the cheesy thing that my family always does and say what we are thankful for. I think this year we should hold hands while doing it too; mostly people’s statements are general ones relating to family, friends, health and happiness and sometimes it is something specific - some years there have even been tears. Once the sappy sharing of love is over the big bird emerges, it's not always a turkey, but it is carved like it is. There usually is lots of wine for us to forget how cheesy we were at the star of the meal and everyone goes home like they were a stuffed turkey, which you are not to do anymore due to health and safety reasons (boring).

I am now turning into Calogera Snr (my mother) who usually serves a 'turkette' (a fat chicken), this was always disappointing as children since the other kids at school always boasted about their big turkeys and came to school with dry turkey sandwiches for the whole week after the holiday, but since my parents were a bit foreign to the whole Thanksgiving thing, they served chicken and told us it was turkey!

Our turkette was served with lasagna and Italian wedding soup and a whole host of other things that were traditionally Canadian thanksgiving-y but we didn't care. The pumpkin pie would always be bought, sliced up for everyone to eat, but the plates would all return to the kitchen un-eaten except for my sister who bizarrely is the only one that acquired a taste for it. The rest of us ate something like my mother's amaaazing tiramisu.

My travels this year have been weird, wonderful and always full of sunshine, love and laughter, the one thing that all of them did was remind me how lucky I am and to this I am very thankful. I have been blessed with love, luck and happiness coming from some of the greatest friends and family around the globe. Thanks to my favourite sisters in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, London and my real sister in Toronto for being part of the reason for this sappy post. Ok enough sap! Smell ya later readers! Off to make friends with an American to snag an invite to eat some real turkey – I’ll bring the tiramisu!