I also never realized what a big deal Thanksgiving was in the states until I was in another country without my family. I've spent several Thanksgivings overseas but with my family and lots of other Americans. It's totally our 'kick off' into the holiday season. I think I also like Thanksgiving because everyone across the country celebrates Thanksgiving. It's not like Christmas which is a religious holiday. So I was desparately missing my husband, as well as missing the festive holiday spirit of Thanksgiving, (I'm sorry, but it's just wrong to be 85 degrees in November) so I bit the bullet and bought a ticket home to spend Thanksgiving with my husband.
I hadn't planned on coming home and didn't have a ton of vacation left so I only actually ended up being home for about six days when you take into account the travel time. The jet lag was pretty tough, but it was totally worth every minute.
Chris and I have sort of started a mini tradition to spend Thanksgiving together in the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. His parents have a condo there and it's really relaxing in the off season. We're always on the go so it's one of the few places that actually helps us both to relax. I left Sydney the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so with the time difference I landed on Wednesday at O'Hare. I actually missed my connection at LAX, but they had already booked me on the next flight which left an hour later so I only landed about an hour or so later than I had planned. I was so nervous about potential weather delays that I had about 15 backup plans for getting to Illinois or Missouri.
I've never in my life been so excited about flying to Chicago O'Hare! It was like a movie - a dramatic embrace at baggage claim! 24 hours of flight time and over 10 weeks since I had last seen my husband and I was here!
We hopped in the car and I proceeded to tell Chris every single detail of my life over the past 10 weeks. What can I say - I missed him! And I like to talk.
We had a quick and very fruitful 'stopover' in Lexington, IL where we looked at a house and put in an offer, but more on that later.
It was about an eight hour drive down to the Ozarks, so we chatted, caught up on life, talked about our potential new house and just enjoyed finally getting to talk in person.
I've mentioned before how everyone's been asking me what I miss and I didn't think I've missed much, but being home I realized how much I have been missing. It's not really one thing in particular, just all of the little things that are so American that you don't really think about. Chris was fully prepared for my visit and had lots of fun things planned so I could soak up as much Americana as possible in my short visit. The best of course was our Thanksgiving dinner. It was a perfect Pam and Olson turkey dinner and my husband even surprised me by bringing 2 sets of our china that we had gotten for wedding presents. Keeper!
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| Now that's how you do Thanksgiving! |
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful, mostly just watching a ton of TV (oh, American TV how I've missed you!), movies, and drinking crappy American light beer - delicious!
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| Mmmm....Coors Light! |
It went way too fast, but I soaked up every waking second. And to top it all off we got a call from our realtor on Thanksgiving day that our offer was accepted on the house! Best Thanksgiving Ever.
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