Not-so-ordinary Thanksgivings, past and present

This wasn’t my first Thanksgiving without the traditional trappings of home and holidays, surrounded by family. 

While this one felt hard, it helped to reflect on the first one.  It brought perspective on what really matters most about the holidays.    

It reminded me that adoption expands your adaptability.  You learn that your long-term goals change the experience of short-term hardships.  I think every adoptive parent has at least one vivid and colorful story of how the process of beginning (or expanding) their family stretched their adaptability!  I hadn’t thought of this one in years but Covid reminded me and I’m glad it did. 

My first Thanksgiving as a mother was spent 3,800 miles from home.  I had been a mom for one month and I was still in Peru with our daughter.  This was not unexpected.  We knew that finalization of our adoption in Peru would take several weeks. 

My husband had returned to Michigan for work and family obligations.  My mother had arrived to meet her granddaughter and keep us company while we waited.  I had also made a new and dear friend, another new mom who was also waiting. 

The three of us undertook celebrating Thanksgiving in a country that didn’t.  With the seasons reversed the weather was better than Michigan – a perk.  We chose a beautiful, open-air restaurant on Lima’s Pacific coast.  We dressed up and got there by taxi.  The seafood and our Pisco Sours were a delicious treat and our moods were festive.  None of us were fluent in Spanish but we managed to convey to our servers that we were celebrating a holiday and they shared our good cheer. 

Did we miss what we were used to?  Of course!  But we were joyful and grateful, determined and patient.  There was no Zoom, no texts, no cell phones. We connected with those we missed via tricky landline calls. But in the service of what we wanted for our families the things we missed were minor.  We rose to the occasion.

The adjustments required this Thanksgiving are less hopeful and festive for sure.  No balmy ocean breezes this year!  But the capacity to be adaptable and the appreciation of family and friendship bridge the two experiences for me. 

I have shared this story with my daughter this week.  She knew about it from the little book we wrote for her as we went through our adoption adventure.  But she heard about it with adult ears and heart this time.  She’s adaptable too.  It must run in the family! 😉

I hope this holiday puts you in touch with one way in which you and your children have been enriched by the challenges, as well as the joys, of adoption.  Tell them one story from your family’s gallery of stories.  Maybe one they were too young to remember.  Or one they’ll hear differently this time because their ears and heart are older. 

That will be a lasting holiday gift.