Nov 28

If you got here because you are looking for ACTUAL recipes for some fantastic or unusual vegan Thanksgiving alternaturkey you are in the wrong place. Sorry!

I’m just here musing about what a Canadian family should do when they are in the USA on American Thanksgiving? We don’t have anyone to celebrate with and I already cooked a turkey dinner for Canadian Thanksgiving in October and I’m not prepared to cook three turkeys in less than three months. So we skipped the turkey.

After some research we discovered the local zoo had a Christmas lighting display that was opening Thanksgiving evening and it sounded like something fun to do as a family. So we decided to stop for supper on the way and then tour the lights. 

Guess how many restaurants are open on American Thanksgiving? Go on, guess.

That’s right, there’s exactly NOTHING open here on Thanksgiving. Not gas stations, not grocery stores, not drug stores, not fast food and not restaurants. 

After some searching we found a restaurant that was opening up at 5pm so we drove around and found a park to let the kids play at in the dark for half an hour until we could get in to eat (that’s right it’s totally dark here by 4:30pm now! I HATE daylight savings time!). We had a pleasant dinner and headed out to the zoo, which we found without a problem and was open and everything!

We enjoyed ourselves at the zoo, walking around and looking at light displays and 25 year old moving stuffed animals that had seen better days. But our kids were thrilled. We did not pay $823279 dollars to have their pictures taken with Santa. We did pay $5 for all of us to ride the carousel for 45 seconds. The kids were besides themselves, family togetherness, blah blah,, yadda yadda.

We head home around 7:30pm and as we pull away we realize that our camera case is missing. We argue all the way home about who had it last and who is responsible for losing it. Because that’s just the kind of loving and forgiving relationship we have – the kind that needs to find our WHOSE FAULT IT IS.

So our merry-making, festive mood has been dampened just a little bit when we pull up to the house and the hubby says “I’m going to need your house key to get in the house”. I have a vague recollection of him telling me when we left the house that he had forgotten to replace his house key on his keychain after lending it to houseguests on the weekend so they could come and go.  At the time it never connected in my brain that I had left my key chain in a different jacket in the house because hubby had keys and we were all fine.

Except for his house key.

GAH.

Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. Our landlord lives on the other side of our duplex and we can just grab the spare key from him. Except if it’s THANKSGIVING and our landlord is out celebrating with his family half an hour out of town.

And guess which five year old reeeeeally had to pee right about now? Yeah, that one. Forgot about her, didn’tcha?

No problem. We’ll know a couple of our neighbours and we’ll just knock on their doors and ask to use their bathroom…except if NONE OF THEM ARE HOME BECAUSE IT’S EFFING THANKSGIVING. 

So we’re trying not to get Avery more worked up but we really have no idea where we’re going to be able to find a bathroom as every effing thing is closed.  After 15 minutes of driving we located an open gas station after stopping at a McDonalds that LOOKED like it was open but was actually just attempting to lure poor non-celebrating-thanksgiving-rebels like ourselves and then laugh at us while our daughter dances around frantically and we desperately pull on the locked doors.

We call and leave a message on our landlord’s cell and he calls us back just minutes later (THANK GOD FOR A GREAT LANDLORD) and he offers to let his dog eat us us into his place with his doorway from the garage to the living room (we don’t have one of these). We politely offer to wait for him to come home and he says he’ll be home within a half hour or so and we weep in gratitude thank him profusely. We drive home and hang out in the car in our garage, letting the kids climb all over each other until our landlord and his family arrive home to let us in.  Tired children are put to bed. We settle in for the evening and relax. All is well.

Until the next morning when we leave to meet friends for lunch and discover that we left the interior lights on all night and the battery is dead. Awesome.

Nov 11

We’re back from our holiday to New Hampshire which was everything a short family trip should be: relaxing and fun.  There are things to complain about tell but that can wait for tomorrow. Today, being Veterans Day here in the USA and Remembrance Day in Canada, calls for a more sombre and reflective mood. 

Being in the USA today means I haven’t seen anyone wearing poppies and I haven’t yet hear a recitation of In Flanders Fields (a poem written by a Canadian soldier during the First World War, traditionally recited on Remembrance Day in Canada) so I decided this year I would have to do it myself.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae
Although the poppy is traditionally worn in the two weeks before Remembrance Day and not after, I will be wearing mine this week as ours did not arrive until just yesterday, despite a dear friend’s best efforts to get them to us.
We will not forget.