For Thanksgiving this year, we gathered around tables outside, lit by candlelight and mosquito coils and Christmas lights, with twenty or so friends from around Mae Sot. We had collectively attempted a variety of dishes from scratch and sans some ingredients, just as we do each and every holiday that comes along.
I made Stephen’s grandmother’s famous rolls so it tasted like home to him and smelled like it to me. I wore a bandage from yet another eventfully unpleasant week of medical issues. We went for a walk, scaring off street dogs the whole way and talking about what we were thankful for and what we were celebrating this week. It was our weekly celebration, after all.
Home and holidays are becoming so vague.
As friends packed up extras to go, there was still so, so very much leftover. But I couldn’t see it thrown out, not serving breakfast to fifty malnourished kids every day. So we packed it up, stored it in our oven for a few hours, and then reheated everything at 6am.
The kids got to take their pick for breakfast, trying sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, stuffing, turkey bone & skin & tendon (what you and I would determine “meat” had been eaten!), and watermelon!
They loved it. Thida loved it. She would encourage them to try something new, and take whatever leftovers they denied! We had a second feast, right alongside the sunrise.
The Flour & Flower ladies arrived to bake bread that morning, but we have rules about the breakfast food being for the malnourished kids, not the adults. However, we often share the leftovers on Friday, so I heard them checking in periodically, disappointed, Are the kids eating it all? Oh, it’s nearly gone…
There were still leftovers (!!!) though that were then packed back into the fridge a bit longer. Around noon, when the ladies finished bread baking, I re-heated everything in the ovens again, while they cleaned up. I made it look like it was for Stephen & I’s lunch, not mentioning anything to them and setting up a little table out of sight around the corner.
And then we surprised them with a little feast for us to have together. And while the stuffing didn’t taste amazing the third time around, and Stephen assured them if you heat the mashed potatoes through (oops!) they taste much better…it was a hit. They each took home a full plate of extras to their husbands.
I love how this community teaches us more and more of home and holiday. So that while it wasn’t a typical holiday and certainly didn’t come in an easy week, we gave thanks together!