What a difference a year makes.

Last year at this time, I was deep into Thanksgiving preparations, turkey, stuffing and all the trimmings. My husband laid up in bed a room away in a short term rental. When we put our house on the market that July, we had plans to move to Costa Rica earlier than we did but you know what they say about the best laid plans. We also truly didn't expect our house to sell as quickly as it did. It sold the first weekend it was up for sale at the first open house. And then they asked for a shortened escrow. We also hadn't expected my husband's surgery, something routine but definitely necessary, to take as long as it did to schedule.

We closed escrow in the middle of September and found ourselves in a short-term rental that we leased until the middle of November. When we took that short-term rental, I was convinced that the surgery was going to be scheduled any day and that we were going to long gone by Thanksgiving. But as Halloween rolled around and we had not been scheduled for surgery yet, I extended our short term rental until Christmas, and then again for unrelated reasons to February and then finally, one last time until mid March.

We got notice 10 days before Thanksgiving that there was a cancellation on the surgical schedule and that we either took three days before Thanksgiving or it was going to be January by the time we were able to officially get on the books. So of course we took Thanksgiving week. As it was a same day surgery, we were home and I was doing my last minute shopping for everything that I had forgotten by Monday night. By Wednesday I was deep into organizing myself and doing the food prep, as Ryan was still laid up, it was my first Thanksgiving cooking completely by myself and being responsible for the entire meal.

That Thursday dawned early for me, and I found myself trying to stick to the by-the-half-hour schedule I had written the previous day. By the time breakfast was finished, I was already an hour and a half behind schedule according to what my agenda said, but that didn't matter. I was in a great mood. You see, Ryan was good, on the mend and for the first time in a long time I felt like everything was going to be okay. This surgery was one of the last major hurdles that we had before we could leave. And it had been a long time coming. There were so many other things with my husband's health to stabilize before he was cleared for surgery. That surgery was the culmination of literally 6 months worth of effort. And more than that, he was in bed, hungry and in a good mood. I don't think either one of us realized how much of a weight was going to be lifted off of us with that surgery.

But more than that, Thanksgiving was a time to be grateful for all of the hope and gifts that we had in the past year. We were standing on the precipice of a major transition, a complete new direction...and for the first time in I can't tell you how long, it didn't feel like we were being smothered by obligation and have to's. It felt almost like being 18 again and standing at the edge of the summer right before moving away to college. The sadness, the introspection of course. I was already dreading saying goodbye to my son as he decided he was not coming. But there was also hope, and an uncertainty of the future that I hadn't hadn't so long. It was filled with potential.

The holiday of Thanksgiving has always been a mixed bag for me. Seems so strange to celebrate the deliberate and systematic destruction of another people, culture, and their habitat. On the other hand, the traditional meaning of Thanksgiving had long been forgotten in a commercial haze and for me it meant sharing-- sharing food and goodwill with my community and people that I loved. Because the holiday always felt so disingenuous, and a whole lot of work besides...three years prior, when I went to purchase my Thanksgiving ingredients, we were fortunate enough that I could purchase an additional Thanksgiving dinner. I put a box together and put it out on social media to my local 'buy nothing' groups. I asked if anyone needed a Thanksgiving meal. I explained what we were doing, how it has been a decent year and I could afford it. I said this was a need and not a want. So to please let me know. And then because I had so many respond, we did it as a lottery.

That following year, I did the same thing. Bought my ingredients, and purchased enough for someone else to make Thanksgiving. It was really important to me that whoever the meal go to, they be given fresh ingredients, so everything I bought for myself I bought an extra. Fresh green beans, real butter, pie crusts, dried cubed bread to make stuffing, raw cranberries, etc...it all went into the basket. Only this time when I put it up on social media, I had a woman reach out to me and tell me she remembered me from the year prior. That if I was doing it again she would love to be a part of it. And so began our Thanksgiving drive. Between us, we were able to gather enough donations and money to give away nine complete Thanksgiving meals. I remember being so proud of what we had accomplished but also so overwhelmed. There were so many that needed so much. How do you make decisions based on who's more worthy of getting your donation? I felt uniquely unqualified. But we did the best we could.

One by one, they all came to my house, picking up their box with lots of grateful tears. I had one father, an undocumented man who was father of seven that worked in the fields near my house. When he came to pick up that night after work, he took his hat off and shook my and my husband's hand. He shared that before we had connected, he had no idea how he was going to pull off a Thanksgiving meal for everybody in his house. He had gone to the store the week prior, and became so discouraged when he realized that the turkey big enough for his fams was going to be $40. When I had initially selected the families, I had taken the counts of family members to make sure that I was giving enough food-- that they got big enough turkeys, enough bags of potatoes, etc. His family was a family of 10. As such, we had two big boxes of food ready for him. He picked up his food that night in a small hatchback. When he realized there was so much food that he couldn't fit it in his trunk, he started crying. And I mean real, ugly crying. He called his brother to bring his car over and we were able to get all of their food loaded up.

Last year, I had more time and since we had just sold our house, a little more money. I was able to purchase three complete dinners in addition to ours. I also started earlier since I had more time. I put it out on social media, the same sites I had prior, and it seemed that the third time was a charm because it caught fire. I had so many people reach out to donate, so many people remembering I had done it the years prior. I reconnected with the same woman and she and I started coordinating efforts. Once again, I headed up taking the requests for food. Because food costs were so much higher than they had been just 2 years prior, I noticed that the requests from families coming in we're not just for big families 8 9 10 people, there were a lot of families of four and five. People were super generous, and my house became not only a place to sort all of the groceries that I had bought with donations, but food donations started to pour in as well. People were purchasing Thanksgiving items and dropping them off at my doorstep. It was so successful, I needed to store turkeys at friend's houses. I had a couple of friends with outside refrigerators also help me store the fresh ingredients for the week prior.

It was overwhelming how much work it took to coordinate the donations, shop, find space for the food, organize the lists and boxes, read every story sent in, make decisions, contact families, sometimes repeatedly following up. But it was also so affirming. It was really incredible that even in the midst of so much strife and dispair that I saw in the country, that our common thread of humanity shone through. There were still so many that needed so much. But because of the generosity of my community, we had been able to create and hand out 23 complete Thanksgiving meals. This year, we even dropped about a half dozen off to families that were not able to pick up as well.

2023, as we hit this past weekend, I realized that we were coming into Thanksgiving week and how utterly non-existent the whole concept is in Costa Rica. While Halloween kind of transferred even if the logistics of it looks a little different, Thanksgiving is completely an American holiday. One that has not transferred despite large numbers of expats. What's more, there is no hint of it in the food markets. No free turkeys with minimum purchase, no big center aisle displays of stuffing cubes and canned cranberry sauce. I had literally forgotten until this weekend. And then again it slipped my mind until this morning. As I was thinking about it this weekend, I realized that I was really sad to miss my food drive. I was really proud that I made the world even a little bit easier for another family...really proud of the fact that I made a tangible difference. I'm not conceited enough to believe that my little food drive is even missed this year, people in the community wondering where I'm at. But I think about those families, the stories of hardship. And I know that this year, food insecurity is even greater in America. I know that the cost of everything is through the roof and in Southern California even worse.

I decided to commemorate our move to Costa Rica with a new tattoo. When I booked it, the date never flagged in my mind. As my alarm went off this morning and I stumbled into the shower, I remembered what today was. Instead of my by-the-half-hour schedule, up at 6:00 and cooking by 7:00 am, I took my daughter to school, and then drove into town for a light breakfast and a tattoo appointment. I sat in the chair for 4 hours and came home with a beautiful not-quite-finished tattoo.

Tonight we will go to my friends restaurant, where he is making an American Thanksgiving dinner. But the food without the rest of it, is just food. This year more than ever, I am so aware that Thanksgiving really isn't about the food-- at least it isn't for me. There was so much about Thanksgiving that I really did enjoy that just doesn't transfer here. I'm sure food insecurity is a thing here but not to the extent that it is in America. There is the occasional homeless person, but when I say occasional, I've seen two in seven months. There is a big social safety net here, which means that people might not make a lot of money, but they have housing and food and almost every child gets an education. The literacy rate in this country is way higher than it is in America, sitting at 96% while the US is at 79%.

So it's different here. Yes in so many ways. I guess I'll just end this by saying Happy Thanksgiving to any and all that read this. I hope your turkeys were fat, your gravy not lumpy and your pie crusts flaky. I hope that you got to see everyone that you wanted to. I sincerely hope that everyone reading this had the most amazing day with the people that they love.

Good night y'all.