The Welcome Table: An Annual Online Thanksgiving Meal
[Melissa stands up, taps her fork against her glass, and clears her throat. The conversation around the table dies down. She looks at everyone at the table.]
We do this every year: Come together as a community and have a virtual meal before we scatter to our actual meals. Unless, that is, you do not celebrate Thanksgiving. But I hope that you’ll join the table for virtual food and company even if you don’t follow this tradition offline.
We’ve virtually eaten together since 2009. That’s when this tradition began. There are some people hurting at this table. For some people, this pre-meal is what gets them through their real meal later in the week. People have written that they’ve printed out this yearly post and comments and left the paper in their purse because it helped to have a tangible reminder that there were people out there who got it. Who weren’t going to ask them when they were going to hurry up and have children. Who weren’t going to cringe when someone spoke the name of a child they lost.
We are all so different. All of us. Around this table. But we have this one facet of our lives — and yes, even though it may be a big, overpowering one for you right now, it is only one facet of who you are — where we overlap: infertility or adoption or loss. And I am so thankful, so grateful, that I found all of you. Everyone needs a You-shaped space where they can be themselves. And that’s what I have here.
So every year, I ask people to bring a virtual dish to our meal. Place it in the comment section, explaining what you brought and why. And say anything else you need to say before sitting back down to enjoy the company. Update about where you are; your emotional state.
We’re an international group, hailing from countries all around the world. So while Thanksgiving is an American tradition, I hope that everyone around the world feels as if they can participate. (Especially our Canadian neighbours who celebrated Thanksgiving weeks ago.) I’d love for your dish to come from your culture or country. Don’t worry about the contents on the table clashing.
As always, I am bringing stuffing. It’s comfort food; mushy and soggy and warm.
So what did you bring and what do you want to say to the community?
And please, start eating as everyone is introducing their dish. We don’t want the food to get cold and there are so many of us at this table. Thank you so much for coming, and I’m going to carry the warmth of this meal with me for the rest of this week.
8 comments
I’m bringing my family favorite chocolate cherry cake and baked brie for an appy. The new man in my life insisted he needs to contribute as well and is making homemade mashed potatoes! He’ll be the only man at the even bringing anything but booze.
This is a bittersweet holiday. It was this holiday last year that led to the diagnosis of my late husband’s cancer. While I knew he was going to die of it, nothing prepared me for how sudden and soon it would be. That’s the bitter. The sweet is that this year I’ll be celebrating in the same place with many of the same people with my future- my boyfriend and his kids. And thankful doesn’t begin to describe what I am for all 3 of them.
He’s also widowed and his kids lost their mom far, far too young. I suddenly am unofficially part of the family I always wanted….Family building takes all shapes, this community know s that well. In this case it took one widow reaching out to another in a gesture of friendship and finding the love we both had dreamt of all our lives. And, creating a new family out of the ashes.
Happy Thanksgiving all!
It’s been a long time since I’ve joined you for Thanksgiving and it saddens me to only see one prior comment. I remember the years when I clung to your blog and kept revisiting to see new comments. Those years of hoping for a baby are long gone, along with my first marriage, and I’m only a few years away from the possibility of grandkids from my step-kiddos. Now I worry what kind of grandma I can be when I never had to raise babies.
Anyway, this year I’m bringing gluten- and dairy-free gravy and dairy-free mashed potatoes. It’s taken me awhile to perfect those but I feel so much better avoiding those foods and not as sad about Thanksgiving as when I just had to avoid half the dishes.
I will bring apple pie because, pie! and because it reminds me of my beloved American Grandma and the American Thanksgivings at her house, so many years ago. 🙂 Happy feast day to those of you celebrating… I can smell the turkey cooking from across the border. 😉 And thank you, Mel, for hosting, and for bringing us all together, all year long, for all these years. xo
I will bring fresh loaf of artisan sourdough bread because I finally got my starter strong enough to reliably raise the dough (one of those small happinesses).
Thank you for hosting and all of the hospitality you have extended for these many years. I blogged as Katherine A/Inconceivable, and while I stopped posting, I haven’t stopped reading (here or many of the other blogs).
I’ll also go with “bittersweet” this year. Back in May, I traded any chance for the much desired third child for an end. I’m minus two tubes, one ovary, and some scar tissue…but also minus chronic pelvic pain and, in a huge surprise, my chronic back pain. Turns out that I have mild endometriosis along with the PCOS and the scar tissue from that was the unexpected back pain culprit. I can run again now and essentially do so many things I’d given up because of the pain. Most of the time it feels like a good trade, but this week the finality of no more possibility of children, ever, is a heavy burden. It is, as they say, what it is.
I picked up the Christelle Dabos series you recommended in books and am loving it.
I’m assuming your Thanksgiving feasts are a lot like our Christmas feasts (except vegetarian). I have a sweet tooth, so once again I’ll bring a pavlova, piled high with seasonal berries and whipped cream, because they are best that way! Maybe some lemon curd mixed in with the berries for a tang.
I’m just glad you’re back following that blip earlier this week. Malware sucks. And even if our numbers here have dwindled, I know that around the world there are many many people thankful for the community you have created.
I’m late! Is everyone sick of leftovers? I have my homemade mac and cheese that everyone loves… But I also have pie. I was making a cherry pie when I realized I had a deep dish frozen crust and needed another can of pie filling but didn’t have another can of cherry. So, I used blueberry! So I am bringing my cherry-blueberry pie and, trust me, it’s delicious.
I am taking the time this season to feel proud. It took me 7.5 years after my last failed treatment to create a life I want to live, but I did it! My major accomplishment does not make up for my loss of motherhood, but there was nothing I could do about that devastating loss. I was still on this planet. My heart was still beating and my lungs were still working, so I needed to figure something out. Never in a million years did I dream that I’d be happy again. I never thought I’d be divorced and living in the mountains in a cute, old home I own in my 40s. But that’s what I’m doing. And I love it. I work, I sew, and I enjoy the little things.
You don’t have to change the world. You don’t have to do anything major with your life, but you do deserve to enjoy it. It might take a long time but doing the work to move away from pain and toward warmth is very, very worth it. It is possible. <3
I’m late to the gathering…as always. I’ll bring the champagne and cinnamon tea and toast us all for making it through…allll the things. Because there are always things. I am in a bittersweet place as well. Turns out having kids adds stress to one’s happy marriage. We have the kids, we also have the resentment and exhaustion. We are in a much better place this year compared to last year, but we are both bearing the scars of a very traumatic time in both our lives. Here’s to making it through! May we all find moments of peace this holiday season.
I’m even later to the gathering than Candice, since things were turned upside down during our holiday. So I’ll bring apple pie, because you can always have that for breakfast the next day and the day after and not tire of it, and by now we’re out of loribeth’s. I need something I can keep nibbling on. I need sweet things. I’m tired, and frazzled around the edges tending to everyone else and not tending enough to myself. But I’m also grateful for the friends who gave us Thanksgiving even though we couldn’t attend, because my husband tested positive for COVID the day before. Here’s to making it through together, and to the friends who make it feel more possible.