Thanksgiving Memories

Tonight I'm laying in bed thinking about the past year of my life and pondering over how fast everything can change. Tomorrow will be the second Thanksgiving I won't be spending with my family back home. It's hard enough awaiting Christmas and seeing the markets go up in town with lights and laughter and families joining together, but now Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving somehow always turned out bad at my house, someone burnt the food or invited unwanted relatives, someone got too drunk or someone got in a fight... but it was always special because it was a day where we were all together. My favourite memory would have to be my last Thanksgiving back home. This was about 2 years ago and we decided that since Thanksgiving is usually such a mess with my family, we'd order Chinese food instead because all of us loved Chinese and because no one felt like eating turkey. So we all wake up Thanksgiving morning, don't even bother to watch the parade and just chat about how excited we are to be eating chinese food and grubbing out on chow ming and orange chicken. Just writing this reminds me of my tummy growls and anticipation to stuff my face. So, it gets to around noon and we send my dad to go get some food and after about half an hour we start wondering where on Earth he was and why we still didn't have any food for our 'Thanksgiving meal'. It just so happens that every single store in the valley was closed for the holiday, especially restaurants. Heck, even Mcdonalds was closed! My dad drove around for hours trying to find food and then he finally happened upon some Armenian Restaurant that sold him chicken with dips and spices and bread and that's what we ended up eating.Since we were all starving by the time he came home we genuinely scarfed down every last bit of the meal and were so full we couldn't move. Now what makes this an amazing memory? About two hours later we all slowly and gradually became completely and utterly sick. We all had food poisoning and were just in absolute rotten shape, we have three bathrooms in our house back in Cali and my family of five was almost wrestling each other for a turn. It was a dreadful day but probably the funniest experience and best memory. My mom was so caring and took care of all of us even though she had food poisoning too, my dad drove around for an hour just so he could bring a warm meal home to his family, Ben and I were joking around about the nasty food all day and Daniel and Noelani were sick with the rest of us. I think we even ended up watching a family movie together that night, all of us, gathered together, empty and sick and the entire house smelled like that disgusting food. Never again will I eat Armenian food, heck middle eastern food in general made me queasy for months after. But it was something we all went through together and can laugh about today. I know spending time with family is never exactly ideal, everyone thinks that their family is lame and we all have that age were we think friends are more important but moving away from Mom and Dad changes all that though. I would give anything to be sitting at a Thanksgiving table tomorrow with my two brothers, mom, and dad and just get to enjoy one more sit down with them. I'd even do it all over again, eat horrible Armenian food, get sick, all of it just so I can spend a little longer with the people I love. What am I thankful for this Thanksgiving? Memories. I'm thankful for the beautiful memories I have with my family that keep me going everyday and just waiting for the time were we will all be together again. I wish everyone an amazing Thanksgiving and hope everyone is healthy and happy this November day. 

Stefanie xx