Bulgarians have never been big on Thanksgiving. Sure, we get to together and do the whole feast, but its more out of respect for American tradition. It's also an excuse to throw a huge party, but that's a whole other story! Every year, we round up all the Bulgarian families (by now there are at least 25 that we know of) and go to one of their houses to celebrate. This year, we did it a little differently. We took away our friends job of cooking the turkey and decided to make it ourselves since we were hosts. When mom brought it home Monday night, dad hadn't come back from work yet and we sort of just left it on the counter for a bit while we stared. Every minute or so, mom would mutter, "I can't cook this thing...it's a monster!" No need to worry though, we eventually we got it cooked! And might I add, it was delicious! We stuffed it with rice, mushrooms, chestnuts and herbs and boy was it good! The first guests arrived at around 7 carrying, as per custom, their own contribution to the table. That's another Bulgarian thing, we bring our own food and we eat really late. After everyone arrived, we had guests as young as 3 all the up to quite a few decades older...I won't say exactly how many now. The entire night couldn't have gotten better as can be observed by the fact that nobody left before midnight (Another Bulgarian thing. During another party, our family left at around 4:30 am while other guests stayed even longer.) Guests kept filtering in during all times but there was plenty food so there was no issue. At one point, a pillow fight between all the younger children broke out! If you think that our Thanksgivings are wild, all I have to say is that they're nothing compared to our New Years!
But even though we don't necessarily celebrate Thanksgiving in the American sense, there is something to learn from tradition. There does come time when one should take a step back and be grateful for everything. And in that lies the true spirit of Thanksgiving.
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