First Thanksgiving abroad

Aaron loved it. I loved parts of it. No one gets off in the Netherlands for an American Holiday, and so inviting people for a Thanksgiving Eve cooking party or the Thursday dinner was complicated. Instead Aaron went to have CT scan for his cancer check up on Thursday. We planned to have him take the day off Friday and treat ourselves to going to Brussels, our favorite place, and feast on delicious Belgian waffles and chocolate instead of a dead fowl. The plan was so simple, so brilliant, and a bit flawed as we didn't account for the bad weather, which honestly, I'm not sure why we still maintain hope to see sunshine before next May. Even a bit of rain wouldn't have stopped us, but Ezra is sick. He's been getting worse and finally today I just kept him home. He lay around all day. It was precious in it's on way, as he asked to just snuggle with me several times, and then actually lay cuddled up next to me for several hours. We all just hung out around the house, content to play and lounge. That is a bit of a miracle in its own way. At about 2 pm, I started to get restless not having done anything all day besides making a special Dutch pancake breakfast. I started to decorate for Christmas. If only they had Christmas trees for sale already. At least our nutcrackers and angels are in place as well as the poinsettias.
What this experience has taught me is that Thanksgiving is really not about a specific item on the menu. It is the preparing and working towards creating a time, place, and reason for family and friends to come together in peace, and celebrate abundance through taking time off, creating delicious food and enjoying it together (and then going nuts shopping on black friday. Nothing says abundance like a "SALE" sign).
We might still go to Brussels tomorrow. Depends on how Ezra feels.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Alright. It's two days later and I might as well add to this post what happened Saturday and Sunday. The weather was even worse on Saturday, and so was Ezra. I spent the greater part of the day and evening just lying on the couch holding him. He is a cute kid when he's sick, just good natured, and asks: Mommy snuggle with Ezra?
I figured that if we're not going to go anywhere I might as well cook a thanksgiving dinner, so today, Sunday, I did. Some things turned out terrific like the stuffing and the pumpkin bread that I made using an organic pumpkin, no cans. It really has a completely different taste. And Aaron made fabulous mashed potatoes. I'm not sure how the cranberry pear pie turned out because now I have an upset stomach, and Micah has been sick all day with high fever. Ezra was sick all morning but was back to normal by the afternoon. He watched Monsters Inc twice, and in general has been enjoying all the TV watching.