by Paula Love

Created on: November 17, 2009

I was twenty-six years old the first time I spent Thanksgiving away from home. I had never strayed far from my small hometown in Oklahoma, so I had always been close enough to continue the tradition of spending the holiday with my parents.

In the summer of 1999 my son left to spend a year with my sister and a family friend, Jaime, in New Jersey. That holiday season it was decided that they would travel to Oklahoma to visit for Christmas and I would travel to New Jersey for Thanksgiving.

As we landed in Newark the weekend before Thanksgiving, I pointed out to my two-year-old daughter the landmarks I recognized across the bay in New York City. I spotted the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty, and something I would sadly never get to see up close, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. My daughter was far more interested in her goldfish crackers than she was in the New York City skyline, but I was eager to start my east coast adventure.

The week was a whirlwind of activity. We went down the shore to Sandy Hook and Long Beach Island, took a train into Manhattan for a day, and I was introduced to Wawa and White Castle. It was culturally a completely different world from Oklahoma, and I was quickly falling in love with that world.

The morning of Thanksgiving I awoke to Jaime bustling in the kitchen, preparing an endless supply of chicken fritters. We planned to meet for the meal at her mother and father's home that afternoon. An ice storm had moved in the night prior and created quite a mess on the New Jersey Turnpike, but we arrived safely.

In my family we traditionally have our Thanksgiving meal in the early afternoon and snack on leftovers as we get hungry later in the day. In contrast, Jaime's family had their meal well after nightfall, but there were appetizers to feed an army: an enormous cheese and meat tray, dishes of spanakopita, olives in varieties I had never even seen, an ample supply of baklava, and of course Jaime's chicken fritters. I was so full from appetizers that I wasn't sure I could eat once it was time for dinner!

The meal started with wine and a delicious shrimp cocktail, then transitioned into the traditional turkey dinner I was familiar with. I silently marveled at the formality of the occasion in comparison to our casual buffet-style celebrations back home. I felt as though I had stepped into a movie. I was a shy country girl in the midst of a beautiful Mediterranean family, but they quickly put me at

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>