Thanksgiving


"Happy Thanksgiving!," our 8 year old chimes as he wakes up Thursday morning and asks to take a fresh pumpkin muffin from the baking tin.

Israel adventures and aliyah realization number 143 (I joke) - - this is another one of those holidays very specific to the United States that it doesn't exactly transfer over.

There are many Israeli or Anglo families that feel strongly to continue the tradition, and celebrate the dinner on Friday night (instead of your turkey leftovers, 2x). Others, choose to embrace their new Israeli roots and detach from the holiday altogether (it is a national holiday, not Pagan but haven't found large turkey for sale here). 

For the Vogel clan, we decided to mark it super low key with an easy dinner that includes turkey deli, corn, baked beans, jellied cranberry from a can and as noted above, muffins. Pumpkin puree is available in Beit Shemesh, at super hatzlacha. Not sure I could find it on Shupersal. 

It feels slightly funny (I wouldn't say sad, just different) that there's no day off of work, battling roads, stressing about travel, packing or anything of the sort. We have very fond memories of the Thanksgiving day parade and by the time we return from work, we could potentially see it during dinner time. 

While Thanksgiving hasn't been adopted here in Israel to the same degree, it's rather ironic that Israel has a יום האם (mothers day) and the secular New Years has crept its way to the culture here. So there seems to be some kind of discrepancy here (let's discuss - thoughts anyone?).

That said, this Thanksgiving 2019, no matter where you are holding in life, we should continue to carve out (oooh a pun!) moments that we can reflect on what we are thankful for, hopes and dreams.

Happy turkey to all. 

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