Our Tradition Is In The Thanks, Not The Turkey

E115: From the Vault: Thanksgiving Edition

Nov 23, 2023

Dateline: Goa, India 2023

Happy Thanksgiving, USA. A special moment for gratitude and connection.

This edition is set to auto-publish the week I fly to India with my Mother.

As I find myself travelling again on this special day, I went way back into The Vault, revisiting Thanksgiving 2004 while we were on our trip around the world.

Our tradition is in the Thanks, not the turkey

When one hears “Thanksgiving” one normally thinks “turkey”.
Today we celebrate Thanksgiving – but we’ll serve fish.

It’s our Thanksgiving tradition

Come with me on a journey. This was the view from our Thanksgiving table in 2004 the first time we were not surrounded by our extended family and our friends – and when we did not have a turkey. It was just our tiny family of five, watching the sunset and the fishing boats coming back to shore in Phuket, Thailand.

We were not even one month into our social experiment. We had left our home in the US two weeks earlier to travel around the world for a year with our young children. It would be the experience of a lifetime! But that Thanksgiving Day was the first time we felt a serious pang of homesickness.

We sat in a sea-side shack, watching the space before us flood with shades of orange, enjoying “a delicious meal of fried fish, fresh from the sea, with a delicious ginger, garlic and pepper sauce, served with a side of ginger shrimp, and drank tender coconut”. (From “Thanksgiving in Phuket” on our private hardcoded-HTML round-the-world blog)

We held hands around the table and gave thanks for each other, and for all the people, blessings, and joys in our lives.

We celebrated the warmth we felt by remembering all who loved us, everyone we were missing and who was missing us – because even when we are not in close proximity, we are still joined in gratitude and love.

Loi Krathong - a Thai festival of Thanksgiving

Our week in Phuket coincided with the Thai festival Loi Krathong, a bewitching ceremony of gratitude - gratitude for the harvest, gratitude to the Goddess of Water for her abundance. The coastline looked like a thousand points of light as family after family came down to the water’s edge and launched the most delicate and beautiful banana leaf ornamental creations, laden with offerings of fruit, flowers, and a lit candle.

As the evening lost its light, we witnessed an even more beautiful treat. Paper lanterns dotted the sky. As they were released they caught the warm upward draft and danced alongside each other as the air currents lifted them higher and higher into the heavens. It was raw - a really honest outpouring of humans thanking nature for her care and bounty. It was mesmerizing.

The empty seat at our table

When I first published this essay in 2016 there were empty seats at our Thanksgiving table as our children were at university. Today, my family is again separated across different continents and countries.

The empty seats take me back to that first time our family did not celebrate Thanksgiving in a traditional way. And once again I am grateful for those great memories and the gift of a year of close-time spent with our young family; for the memory of friends and family following our journey via our blog; and for the outpouring of concern for our safety during the Tsunami that happened on December 26, 2004, so soon after our meal on Karon beach in Phuket.

It is also our annual day of remembrance, bringing back our own memories and hope for all the happy faces who had celebrated Loi Krathong mere weeks before the Tsunami, all those who had served us our ‘Thanksgiving’ meal, our hope for the survival of their families, friends, and livelihoods.

Far from home, but close at heart

Our tradition continues. I’ll cook fish and give thanks for all our blessings, and remember all who are missing from our table.

And my children? They’ll call home to chat, order sushi (a creative take on our tradition!), eat a thanksgiving meal “together” via Zoom, and also give thanks.

Because it is not important what we eat, but that we stay connected. And that we continue to remember those we love, who love us back.

And to give thanks for nature’s abundance of gifts to us.

Thanksgiving Tradition was previously published November 2016 on karenadesouza.com.

A special thanks to

Emma Dorge

and

Brooke’s Substack

for their insights and edits.

Past Thanksgiving issues:

TRAVEL UPDATE:

Landed safely on an Air India flight direct from Gatwick to Goa, India. And our captain was a Goan woman. I was thrilled!

More photos next week. I’m considering dropping a daily clip on Instagram Story (handle: tiltthefuture) with the sights and sounds of our little corner of heaven as I settle into village life:

With much gratitude to you all!

Tribe Tilt - a warm welcome to our many new members. You are joining a group that believes we can make a difference to the people and places that are precious to us. The primary topics we discuss here are the long view on the Future of Work, Raising Future Ready Leaders, and Climate. We enjoy a healthy and respectful debate, so feel free to share your thoughts.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the members of Tribe Tilt. You make this space warm and inviting. Many recommended older editions worth re-printing [“The Vault”], and many who will generously be sharing their own essays with our larger community. Between these I hope to maintain my weekly publishing schedule. As my mother always recommends “Ask, and you shall receive …”. Thanks, Ma!

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Stay healthy. From there all else becomes possible. Give thanks for the people and wonders around us.
See you again next week.
Karena