As the winter slowly approached here in Florence, and the cold crisp air signals the changing of yet another season, I am reminded of all the wonderful holidays that I have spent back home in Grayson, and I am flooded with thoughts about everyone back home. It is odd how only now I seem to truly realize the magnitude of spending 9 months abroad. I knew that I would be away for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, but had no idea the weird sense I have now of missing all the comforts and familiarity back home. Little things like a fire in our family room, or the food served for a big Thanksgiving dinner, all will be missing this year. I cannot replace the places or the people or even some of the things I left back home, but I know that this holiday season will have its own memories and its own sense of giving thanks and joy. Just as Florentines love the celebration of Halloween, they too are interested in the concept and tradition of an American Thanksgiving. On numerous occasions, when asked about the meaning or historical relevance of this day, I usually create a story filled with Indians and Pilgrims coming together for pumpkins and freshly harvested corn. They sit around a large table and share the bounty of the new world. And suddenly it hits me, this is what we tell children and what I myself have pictured occurring on this day, but it is all a contrived fallacy. Don't get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving and the story makes for cute decorations and funny crafts for kids, (thank goodness) and does its part in setting a fantastic mood, but now I realize that I love this holiday for exactly what the name implies. I love giving thanks for the blessings in my life, and even more so now that those blessings are more distant from me.
So how do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Italy? Well, I knew they have pumpkins or "Zucca" and pie crust is simple enough, why not just make a delicious pumpkin pie, which is one of my favorite back home. It took me about a week to get all the ingredients needed for this classic holiday dessert and about a hour, to translate it from cups, tablespoons, and degrees F to grams, liters, and degrees C, but it was worth it. One of the hardest ingredients to find, was a replacement for graham crackers in the crust I new would be delicious for the pie. After tasting several sweet cookies, Mavi's breakfast cookie, I found, would work perfectly. I wanted to use this occasion to spend some time with Giova in the kitchen and to watch him enjoy the mixing, and measuring, and spoon licking that is all so much fun when cooking. Some of my favorite holiday memories back home include the smell of our kitchen when mom was frantically cooking the delicious food for our family Thanksgiving meals. And I remember being told during the holidays to stay out of my moms way while she cooked. All of us boys took the warning quite seriously, but would always listen for the sound of a blender or the tapping of a whisk to stop, and knew that in that very moment mom had finished something that would result in a sticky, sweet, messy kitchen utensil that needed licking. Anthony, Mitchell, and I would run in and inevitably she would ask, "Who wants the whisk, and who wants the bowl?" As I watched Giova pulverize the cookies in the blender, and gave him the finished whisk after the whip cream was ready, I was taken back to a very happy time in my own life. To see the joy in his face was worth the mess I would later realize we made. Once the pie was poured and in the oven, we went back to playing with toys and coloring, but this is now a memory of a Thanksgiving half a world away that I can carry with me forever and look back with fondness next year, years from now, and one day when I have children of my own.
The family loved the pie, and again complimented me on another well done job in the kitchen. I really enjoy spending time mixing and cooking, and talking of back home with Giova while we bake delicious treats we can both enjoy. I would say my Italian Thanksgiving was a success, and look forward to my Italian Christmas here with the family, and to all those I love back in the "New World" Happy Thanksgiving!
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