Thanksgiving Overseas

Well, we had our first holiday overseas. While we are extremely thankful for the overseas family we do have here, and we had such a wonderful time with them, its hard to know that you are on the other side of the world from your famliy during a time when most families are coming together. 

I find myself clinging to the things which are familiar. Like having canned cranberry sauce, not because everyone loves it, but because thats what we've had every year on Thanksgiving. I'm sure its partly my obsessive compulsive tendencies that drive me to do things or have things that we have every year, and send me into panic mode when it doesn't work out that way.

So you can imagine how I felt (or maybe you can't unless you have the same problem) when I signed up to bring the pumpkin pie and couldn't find any. We searched seven stores, and searching seven stores in Shanghai is no small task. We looked for pumpkin pie or ingredients to make pumpkin pie, but, no success. Can I jut tell you, I actually had nightmares that I ruined everyone's Thanksgiving because I had no pumpkin pie to bring!

Sigh, oh the holidays...then there was the tree decorating. I had to do my best to make it just like it was growing up, but my mom wasn't here to do it all for me :(  And our tree doesn't lean to one side like our tree always did grwoing up (okay, maybe I don't miss that part).  And my dad wasn't there to eat all the cookies. And we didn't have "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" on tv. And I didn't have a sister to fight with over hanging up certain ornaments. 

I know this is only the start of figuring out how holidays will be without family like we've had, and we have quite a few more to go, but its made me especially grateful for the times we did have. And it makes me look forward to the time we will have in the future, and spending a holiday together again.