Back in the USA for Thanksgiving

Reading Time: 3 minutes

This year, after eights years of celebrating Thanksgiving outside of the U.S, I’ve finally celebrated one within it.

I continued the tradition of being away from my family. When I came back to the U.S. I was looking forward to finally spending a Thanksgiving with them, in my blog post last year on Thanksgiving, I mentioned how much I missed not being a part of it. Why didn’t I go home then? Well, for one, getting out of Blacksburg and back to NY is a journey. Blacksburg is like a bubble in the middle of nowhere, with few connections to the outside. My recent return trip in September was too fresh in my memory to attempt flying again, plus it was too expensive. Driving is 9.5 hours without traffic, and driving along the eastern corridor during Thanksgiving holiday was not something I wanted to take part in. I believe a conservative estimate was an 11+ hour trip and I couldn’t be sure the van could make it there and back. The train would have been the best option, but even that is not great and I’m doing it in 2.5 weeks when I go home for Christmas. There’s no train in Blacksburg, so I’ll have to take a 5am bus from the student center, which is a 20min walk away, and then a 9+ hour Amtrak to Penn station. An adventure I didn’t want to do within 2.5 weeks with each other.

Of course, I would have loved to have been home for Thanksgiving. Had there been an affordable direct flight from Roanoke to JFK, or a train that didn’t take 9 or 10 hours requiring me to leave at 5am, I wouldn’t have hesitated to take it. Instead, I stayed in Blacksburg and celebrated it with some friends. So while I was back in the U.S., it was almost like another Thanksgiving abroad.  

This year was my smallest Thanksgiving yet. I had three friends over, one was from Brazil and two were from India and it was their first time celebrating it. I was so excited to easily buy the ingredients in the store, rather than overpriced and online in Korea. Plus, in Korea, I was severely limited in terms of what I could buy. In Kroger, it was amazing to see the emergence of Thanksgiving related items the week leading up to it.

Continuing my tradition, I made my famous broccoli casserole and sweet potato casserole. I also cooked crock pot stuffing, vegetarian gravy, brownies, and mashed potatoes. I also prepared my mom’s apple cheddar apple dip last minute. The mashed potatoes were such a disappointment. I followed a recipe in an attempt to jazz them up, adding sour cream and cream cheese, but it ended just tasting like cream cheese. Since I had already mashed sweet potatoes to make the casserole, I didn’t want to go through that process again with regular potatoes, but next year I will. I’m going to buy a masher, or a hand blender and make proper mashed potatoes. My Brazilian friend Ivan brought a super cheesy, white sauce lasagna and a homemade lemon pie that was divine. My two Indian friends, Chandan and Rutaraj, brought Indian dishes whose names I cannot recall and probably forgot when I was told them and a delicious rice pudding-like dessert. There was easily enough food for 8-10 people. We barely made a dent, but we had a ton of leftovers.

A funny instance:

It’s both Chandan’s and Ruturaj’s first time in the U.S. and outside of India, having just arrived for graduate school in August. Many things are new to them, like a carb loaded dinner filled with baked cheeses. For Rutaraj, it was also his first time seeing a marshmallow and eating a marshmallow. He was surprised at how soft they were, and extremely confused about the taste. I’m not sure if he enjoyed or if he never wanted to see another one again.