For Every Season: A Journey of Belonging

New Roots, Old Rituals.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and also one of the most difficult ones to spend so far away from home. But it comes with the territory (literally), living in another culture with different traditions.

After all of the Halloween and Día de Muertos celebrations, México goes straight into Christmas. After living in Mexico for 11 years, it still feels funny—and, marketing and promotional holiday campaigns aside—it’s never felt right to start Christmas until Thanksgiving has come and gone. But I’m rolling with it and admittedly have already put up half of my Christmas décor.

There are many who no longer enjoy celebrating Thanksgiving in the US, but what I continue to celebrate is togetherness, abundance, family and friends, family traditions and rituals.

I miss the look and smell of deciduous trees lining the roads as we drive up to a family home, and the relaxed buzz of family voices and laughter in the background as we prep and cook and play games. I miss long, cool walks over crunchy fallen leaves, trying to walk off the first round of gluttony while making some room for Grandma Amy’s special pumpkin pie and that box of See’s Candy still waiting to be devoured.

But amidst all the nostalgia and homesickness, there is abundance and joy in the place I’ve adopted as home (and that has also adopted me—it’s a two-way street). I’ve made friends here who feel like family. And I can still tune in to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, throw a football around, and bake a pumpkin pie. It can be bittersweet, but being here, too, has its beauty to celebrate.

But even if I was back in California, there is no more family home. Dad is gone, friends are dispersed all over the place. No matter where we find ourselves on this planet, change is the only constant. It’s a continuous lesson in adjustment, in allowing flow. Catch and release. It’s a lesson in being in the here and now with what we are given and loving the shit out of that, too. Because no matter what changes come, the memories always remain and continue to be made. In my case, with a Mexican twist.