Thanksgiving in Tokyo

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving with several friends we've met in the past year since moving from Yokohama to Tokyo. Actually, all of them are connected with the Starbucks where I hang out so often (some are regular customers and others work there). We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, gravy, creamed spinach, hot cider and pumpkin pie. It was good...and a lot of work. But I really like Thanksgiving and think it's worth an effort to do something like this once in awhile. My wife and I have a way of getting in over our heads though. Last year we narrowly averted disaster (caused an oven with a broken heat sensor). But we had a great meal with about 25 people, and it turned out to be a great time.

This year we faced another kind of obstacle. On Tuesday, all three kids and I were sick with colds. Every night this week we've been serenaded by the agonizing sounds of coughing kids. Wednesday one of the twins got an eye infection, so we took her to the doctor. That same night, both my older daughter and I came down with eye infections, too. The next day, I went to the dentist (another story). That evening I took our daughter with me to the doctor and we both came home with bags of medicine. Thursday I drove an hour and a half to Costco to buy a turkey (and pumpkin pie, etc). That night the other twin crawled into our bed crying and holding her ear. She went to the doctor on Friday and came home with medicine for her EAR infection. Finally, Friday night, our four year old daughter seemed to have a problem with her ear.

Yesterday morning I woke up, filled the sink with cold water and put the turkey inside (to finish thawing). My wife ran our daughter to the doctor at 10am, but she missed the chance to get in right away and came home instead. I put the turkey in the oven just after noon and then went shopping for the rest of the meal (looking at my watch the whole time). My wife tried to take our daughter to the doctor again in the afternoon and was told to come back after 5pm. Basically, she had her hands full all day dispensing medicine, comforting kids and running back and forth to the doctor. Most of our guests came by 4:oo, and a couple came earlier to help. I'll leave the frenzied details to your imagination, but we laid the food out on the table about 6:30, just as my wife walked in the door with my daughter (who had an acute ear infection in both ears). We took the pictures above and then ate and ate.

It occurs to me that Thanksgiving was much more relaxing when my mother did most of the work... I don't think we relaxed yesterday until about 7pm or so. But we learned some things, and I'm already thinking about next year. :)

All the kids (and I) are doing pretty well despite everything. Between us we have 4 colds, 3 eye infections and 3 ear infections. But amazingly they haven't been in much pain. The hardest part is going to the doctor and getting medicine in them. After everyone went home last night I watched Spiderman 2, went to bed late, and then slept in (and then on and off) until about 11:30.

The food was good. After the meal we got to hang out and talk with our friends and play some Jenga. I like Thanksgiving because it NOT as commercialized as other major US holidays. At least in my experience, it's always been about enjoying family and friends, and that's what we try to do. I was bummed that the events of the day pushed aside some of the time we could have spent hanging out talking.

By the way, the first picture above is a "re-creation" of the moment when I first put the turkey on the table. Everyone pulled out a cell phone or camera to take a picture. Imagine if you were invited to someone's house and they pulled something out of the oven you'd never seen before. I would get my camera. Anyway, this post is long enough. There are several more "on topic" things that I want to elaborate on later, so look for more posts in the next few days.

Posted by jw at November 28, 2004 03:59 PM