How a Thai-American Family Celebrates Thanksgiving

Some of my memories of the fourth Thursday of November:

Picking out orange, brown and red leaves to decorate our Thanksgiving table. Eating and laughing with my two cousins at the kids table in my grandma’s living room while the adults chatted in the dining room. Piling up creamy, buttery mashed potatoes on my plate until they reached the ceiling. Playing soccer in my grandma’s front yard in the crunchy leaves with the fam post-Thanksgiving meal.

Some of my Thai Hubby’s memories of the fourth Thursday of November:

Wake up. Eat Thai food. Go to school. Play video games. Eat more Thai food. Go to bed.

If you know the history of Thanksgiving, it began in America with the Pilgrims and Native Americans. But I have had two people ask me how they celebrate Thanksgiving in Thailand.

They don’t.

But one of the many benefits to being married to a Thai guy is that we never have to deal with which side of the family do we spend the holidays with conundrums that my friends always are so troubled about. I get dibs for Thanksgiving, plus Christmas, since most Thais aren’t Christian, it isn’t a big deal to them.

But sometimes when we live a 22-hour drive away from my family in NC, and can’t afford to fly in just for a few days, we don’t even go to see my family for Thanksgiving. So what do we do when we have no family to spend Thanksgiving with on either side?

We go to Mexico.

My Thai hubby and lil Rocco are using their American passports for the first time tomorrow as we go to Reynosa, Mexico until Sunday. We are going on a missions trip with our church to minister to a community who lives on the border in shantytown-like conditions with no running water and no electricity.

Dom will probably work on one of the construction projects like installing solar energy panels into the shanties, and Rocco and I will help out with giving food and coats to the families and putting on a Vacation Bible School with the kiddos.

We love how since it’s a family missions trip,  Rocco will go with us. One of our family values is serving others like Jesus did, and we are excited to start this tradition with Rocco. But we are also looking forward to seeing Jesus in the families we are serving and being humbled and renewed by their generous, loving hearts.

I won’t be cooking Thai food, or a Thanksgiving meal this week, but we will be serving a Thanksgiving meal to the people we are loving on and introducing them to our awesome American tradition.

We will let you know how it goes, and until then Happy Thanksgiving! Have extra fun cooking and baking for me!