It wasn’t easy. Our new American friends offered to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. They would buy the turkey and cook it. They offered us the sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie…the works. I stuck to making the green vegetables and brownies. We also hosted at our house.
The poor American lady had to move Heaven and Earth to get a full turkey and the whole bird had to be less than 21 cms high or it wouldn’t fit in her oven. The applicances here are microscopic. My stove is slightly larger, but my freezer fits about 4 items…tops! Anyway, she did it. Awesome for the meat eaters in the family…which keep getting less. Maggie, just two days before Thanksgiving, came home from school and declared that she was becoming a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian and I have been one for almost 20 years. Maggie was a vegetarian until we moved to Augusta, Georgia from Los Angeles. You see in the South, Chick-fil-A is like a basic food group. Everyone eats there and everyone eats chicken.
Like a sirens call, Maggie was driven by curiosity to want to eat at Chick-fil-A. When she was about three and a half, she had her first chicken nugget and the rest is history. She fell in love with chicken nuggets, chicken tenders and eventually turkey. I tried to limit her intake of nuggets, but it did become her go to favorite meal. That was until about a week ago. She came home from school and said it was over…she wasn’t eating meat again. When I asked her why, she said that she was watching the kids eating gross food at school…octopus, lamb, pork…(this is Portugal, no pb&j sandwiches at lunch, except for my kid) and she felt like God told her to stop eating chicken and turkey.
What do you say when your kid claims that God told her to become a vegetarian? I married a priest, who said he felt God told him to be a priest when he was 15 years old. I can’t or maybe I won’t argue with her logic. I would lose and I would seem like a creep. I told her that was fine, but she would have to eat what I ate. I wasn’t making another separate meal for her too. So now comes, thanksgiving.
I had to explain to the people who brought over a gigantic turkey, that my daughter was now a vegetarian and only my priest and my little carnivore would be enjoying their turkey. We had a nice holiday despite my crazy train daughter. I was thankful for the meal and the day and that we were able to pull it together despite being in a country that doesn’t sell canned pumpkin or cranberry sauce. We did it and we had fun in the process.