On Thanksgiving Thursday, I forgot to watch the Thanksgiving Day Parade with Jonah & Vera - that is the bad news! I love the parade! I grew up watching and attending the parade! I could not believe that I forgot to watch it?!?!
The good news is that in the late morning, we made our annual pilgrimage to Baltimore to share Turkey and a bountiful feast with Jocelyn's family.
I remember going to her family's house for the first time for Thanksgiving eight years ago and loving it. Eight years ago, when I walked in the huge brownstone row house in inner city Baltimore (the same house Jocelyn grew up in), I was immediately put to work - and I knew these were my kind of people! Jocelyn's mom asked me to to roll the knives and forks in napkins - so I did. While I did so, all the "aunties" were gathered around in the kitchen whipping up magical dishes of goodness... the smells were wonderful - and the accents - all West Indian - and I could hardly understand a word that they were saying!!! It was quite fantastic.
Fast forward eight years later. On Thursday, we showed up with Jonah & Vera. Often the crowd that gathers is quite large - family, friends, and then more family and more friends. This year it was only the close family and friends - it seemed small (but it is relative - as there must have been at least 15 people and 4 kids). We got there early and Jonah & Vera had a blast playing in the big open space - they love visiting the Baltimore house. Then Jonah & I rolled the forks and knives in the napkins - this has become my job! Jonah & Vera spent a ton of time playing with their awesome cousins. We ate a ton of delicious food. We just hung out and enjoyed ourselves. It was good.
This year we decided to stay over night and that meant more hanging out on Friday morning! The kids (and the rest us) really had a wonderful time!
The funny story of the visit was this:
Growing up in my family, I can remember always dressing up for Thanksgiving (either a Pilgrim or an American Indian). We have pictures from different years in which my cousins, me, and my brother were all dressed up. So of course, I thought Jonah & Vera should dress up too! I asked Jonah & Vera what they wanted to be - the Pilgrims or the American Indians - Jonah said the American Indians. I came up with some Native American inspired outfits and added scarf headbands - they looked great. Jonah then told me that me and Mama should be the Pilgrims - so we did. I happened to just buy this very pilgrimesque new black and white peasant shirt - which I wore with black pants and a white sheer sparkly scarf for a hat. Jocelyn wore the black Abe Lincoln hat and a white tshirt the I drew on with black magic markers. We looked very much like modern day pilgrims!
The funny part of the story is that Jocelyn's family thought the whole thing was super silly - that is that is after we pointed out that we were dressed up - since they hadn't noticed?!?! As many of her family and the friends at Thanksgiving were not American born but West Indian - they sort of thought I was just some wacky American born new mom... which is true - but it was a very spirit of Thanksgiving experience: the immigrants did not exactly understand the native custom of the day - but they went with - laughed and we all celebrated together!!
Hope everyone had wonderful Thanksgiving!
BTW: Jonah grabbed the camera at one point and took the last 5 photos included below - he is getting to be an excellent photographer.
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