Tag: Thanksgiving

To all of you-Happy New Year

In France, it’s rare to be sent a Christmas card by a French person. That is done by ex-Pats. The French send New Year’s cards. And they give themselves the month of January to do so. The holidays are past, presents bought and opened, family has come and gone, and the month of January, on paper, is stress-free to send out family news and best wishes for the New Year. If one has a service person that has worked hard for you, the Gardien of your building for example, most people include money to say Thank You.

This year I’m doing both. I’m in the US (California) so it seems right to send Christmas cards and there is nothing more fun than to open up a digital card from http://www.jacquielawson.com with dogs romping, cats playing the piano, flowers growing before your eyes – all to lovely music. The only sadness is that I’m so used to opening up real cards that you hold in your hand, and then put on the fireplace mantle and side tables until all you see are lovely Holiday wishes everywhere you look. I did receive enough of those to make my mantle look quite festive.

Then starting tomorrow, I’ll put some thoughts together to send to friends. Uppermost in my mind will be how to find some sort of contentment in this crazy world of ours. Over the years, I’ve been taught to write gratitude lists. I grew up seeing the glass half empty. I was always down and disappointed. People who care about me, want the best for me, have told me to practice being grateful. Not for the huge things in life, but the little things: a wonderful cup of coffee in the morning, a sunny day when one can take a long walk, a phone call from my sister who, beyond all understanding, wants as I do, a relationship—well that is a big thing but it does go on my gratitude list fairly often. I am grateful for so many things but most of all for the fact, that I am aware that I have many things that one can’t just take for granted. When I feel down, it’s so helpful to remember those things. And to remember that all feelings pass.

So tomorrow that’s one thing I’m going to do—write down all that I’m grateful for that happened in 2023. Though many of us feel that 2023 was a very difficult year, it’s mostly looking at the world and the amount of hatred, killing, nastiness flying all around us. To try and find some stability, some personal contentment when we all care so much, is quite a feat, a skill really. A skill that starts with feeling grateful.

In both the US and in France, it’s the Red, White, and Blue

So on this New Year’s Eve, I want you all to know how grateful I am that you readers consistently read this blog, that you take the time to give me feedback, and that you cheer on my writing successes.

I wish you all a way to find personal peace in 2024 and that we continue to meet on the page, and that words continue to go back and forth between us.

Thank you,

Sara

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Thanksgiving in France

November 24th was just another Thursday for Parisians.  Life went on as normal–weather getting colder, Christmas decorations going up and traffic trying to figure out how to avoid traffic jams now that Mayor Hidalgo has closed two main thoroughfares to everything except pedestrians and bicyclists.

For me, it was Thanksgiving.  My 4th Thanksgiving in Paris.  My first Thanksgiving in 2013, My friend, Barbara and I went to the Hippopatomus for dinner then to see Captain Phillips with Tom Hanks.  For Thanksgivings 2014 and 2015, I invited fourteen people to my apartment on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful meal and went around the room each saying our special gratitudes.

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This year, I am moving apartments.  I couldn’t possibly entertain and also be closing up the apartment.  A month ago, two good friends, American and French, invited me to celebrate Thanksgiving with them ON THANKSGIVING!  That invite made my whole day seem different.  Every time I looked out the window, I expected to see little or no traffic.  I kept having to remind myself that stores were open.  Only the thousands of e-mails I received informing (as if I was a Martian) me about Black Friday and Cyber Monday reminded me that this weekend is bigger than an American day of gratitude.  It has been surpassed by a world celebration of Greed! of More!

The two years that I hosted Thanksgiving, I would go to the Thanksgiving store in the Marais and put in my order for a turkey.  That turkey costs 4 or 5 times the price of a Butterball and the first year I justified it by telling myself I was the hostess and therefore brought the Poultry of Honor.  After eating said turkey, I had no need to justify anything.  Without exception, French turkeys are the best I’ve ever eaten.  I’m told they are raised in the South of France, under very humane conditions.

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At the Thanksgiving Store, one can also buy Libby’s Pumpkin, stuffing makings, aluminum to cook the turkey in, all sorts of nuts, evaporated milk and most anything else that screams Thanksgiving but is all but impossible to find in Paris and certainly the rest of France.

You would have to have a subscription to SkyTV in order to see a football game and who knows if you could find something on at the same time.  And because we have Thanksgiving dinner literally and not a mid-afternoon meal, there is not the usual constitutional before dessert and coffee.

 

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Tom, Sylvie, Bill, Sylvaine, Susan, Barbara

 

There is something about Thanksgiving.  Maybe it’s because it’s still Autumn and in many parts of the States, it is still Indian Summer.  The leaves of many colors have floated to the ground, the weather hovers somewhere between crisp and delicious, my last 25 Thanksgivings in California have always had blue skies.  It is a quiet day and usually a quiet celebration.  Football fans are shooed to the TV room to cheer on their teams and the rest of us sit around the table in a relaxed fashion that just isn’t possible for most of the year.

As you can guess, it’s my favorite holiday.  It reminds me to be enormously grateful for the abundance in my life, for so many friends in both the US and in France.

 

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Susan, Barbara, yours truly, Sylvie 

Are you an ex-Pat?  How did you spend your Thanksgiving?

A bientôt,

Sara