A Very German Thanksgiving

The presidential election has had some notable consequences this year. Namely, that we did not attend the traditional family Thanksgiving due to my inability to avoid the subject of politics with my Republican relatives.

Normally, I would be able to rein my political sentiments in, but in light of the fact that I had tried reaching out to said family members the day after the election only to be rebuffed with reasons of ruining their vacations by speaking of it, I felt particularly convicted that a conversation would have to take place on Thanksgiving.

Why? I voted for neither big party candidate, so it wasn't because my girl lost. It was because of all the suffering and fear I was experiencing in the folks around me who had been targeted by Mr. Trump's rhetoric. And I needed to understand what motivated my own flesh and blood to cast their voice in support of such a person.

Was I worked up? You bet. Was I wanting to work towards a resolution? Yep. But it appeared that only half the Trump voters in the family were interested in communicating around it.

So I had to clarify. I sent out a text.

"Just to be clear, I don't think I can show up at Thanksgiving without talking about the election unless I can have a conversation about the election with you all before hand. If that isn't appealing, we are happy to cancel and spend the day with friends."

The non-speaking half of Trump's supporters were happy to have us cancel.

And THAT is how we came to spend Thanksgiving with our European friends. In fact, and perhaps, ironically, I was the only full blood American in the group. Which, seemed to be in keeping with how the history of the real Native Americans and the Europeans unfolded. So that was very thematically accurate of us.

Espen and his friend Stella were in fine form. Stella is 5 and Espen is 3 and a half and Stella can climb anything that doesn't move. By the halfway point  in the festivities, both Espen and Stella came racing into the kitchen nude, grabbed the door frame and scuttled up to the ceiling, screaming like howler monkeys.

Then they dashed back upstairs
to the bathroom where they resumed cackling madly in a bathtub full of toys.

Meanwhile the adult Germans, the Dane and I reveled on.

Surrounded by the flashing bodies of nude kids, turkey, music and delicious wine, we whiled away the hours until we had finished several rounds of dinner, first and second deserts and a couple bottles of red. We all agreed on politics, debated the electoral college briefly and got back to making merry. It was, as they say, a seamless affair.

Especially for Espen and Stella since they were nude most of the day.

And while I was sad that my family would rather be apart than discuss important issues for our country, I was delighted to experience the easy camaraderie between folks that do not share native languages or cultures.

I know there is a lesson in this about expectations of family being higher and the generosity of friends, but

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to have spent the day with an open heart. I hope my family did too. Maybe next year, we'll have it together.