Giving thanks

Today is Thanksgiving. At least in the United States it is. And it is one of my very most favorite holidays.

When I moved to Stockholm over 27 years ago, I made a vow that I would celebrate Thanksgiving here every year, with a big turkey and all the fixings. I couldn’t do it on the normal Thursday it was celebrated because that was an ordinary working day for those of us living here in Sweden so I did it on Saturday. For my very first Swedish thanksgiving, I had to special order a turkey. Large turkeys on the American Thanksgiving scale were extremely rare here. I went to Östermalms Saluhall, a pricy, old fashioned food hall. There they had a shop that sold all sorts of fresh fowl. When I placed my order with the clerk he asked me how large I wanted my large turkey to be. He suggested an 11 kilo bird and I could come and pick it up the next week. Now you have to understand that at this time I had only lived in Sweden for less than a year and my grasp of the metric system was a bit hazy and 11 kilos sounded like a small, reasonable size. After all, I was used to my mom’s 24 to 26 lb turkeys from my past. Well, imagine my surprise a week later when I went to collect my bird. 11 kilos is about equal to 24 lbs! I barely managed to lug it home on the subway. It barely fit in my small apartment stove – the pan sat on the bottom of the oven and the stuffed bird had less than half an inch of clearance all around it. But it all worked out. We invited 2 other Swedish/American couples to share our Thanksgiving with us and we had leftovers to keep us happy for a long time.

Since that first time, I have made a bird every year but one. Some years I only roasted the bird and then Håkan and I drove it and ourselves to someone else’s apartment or house which was bigger than our little 1-bedroom place. After we enlarged our apartment 15 years ago, I have only had to move the turkey from the oven to the kitchen counter. Every year we invite the two families we have known since Bevin was little and who have kids he counts as friends. And each year we add a couple of others to fill out our table.

The one year I missed was the year Bevin was born. He came along in November and we were so stressed with our newborn we had no time or energy to think about dealing with a turkey that was bigger than our new little darling.

And today is Thanksgiving once again. I haven’t ordered a turkey this year. I told our friends there would be no invitation to sit around our table with us this weekend. Like that November day 23 years ago, I’m not up to doing a big shindig. Tomorrow, Friday, Håkan is coming home, after almost 2 months of being in hospital and rehab. So our little family is going to take it easy this weekend. Maybe I’ll just buy a large fresh turkey breast and some sweet potatoes and make some gravy – just for the three of us – for this year’s Thanksgiving holiday. Because this year, at this time, I am really very thankful.