What do we do for Thanksgiving?

There’s no family Thanksgiving tradition for us, but we’re creating our own now, first-generation style.

Denver, Colorado, Thanksgiving 2015.

With a flurry of snow outside, my then-boyfriend, now husband, slowly navigated our small rental car through the Denver suburbs, with me sitting in the passenger seat and our Chinese takeout in the back. The American Chinese restaurant next to a shabby gas station was the only restaurant open on Thanksgiving Day near our Airbnb. We were the only car moving on the street, and everything else was still and quiet. There was nothing but the sound of our rental car rolling over the snow, the squeaking of the windshield wipers, and the AC blasting warm air. Rows of suburban warm-lit houses passed by us with silhouettes of people inside.

That was our senior year of college. We were international students and neither of us had a Thanksgiving dinner to go to.

Neither of us talked about how sad it was at the time, watching other people go home to their families and feeling rootless. The snow and the cold only made it worse. But we both talked a lot about it afterward - how sad it is to be in the US during Thanksgiving and not have a home to go back to when everything was closed.

What do we do for Thanksgiving?

I've been asking myself this question every fall since I came to the US. When I was still in college, the dining halls would shut down for almost the entire week and the campus would be completely deserted. I remember my American peers talking about getting rides home in the weeks leading up to it, and some of them skipping classes earlier that week so they could be home for almost ten days. Professors would cancel classes on Wednesday with little attendance expected anyway, and perhaps, to go home early themselves.

Everything signaled that no one was supposed to be on campus anymore, and it was time to go home, except that I didn’t have one nearby, and it was never feasible to fly back to Asia just for a few days.

For many international students like me, Thanksgiving week became a long weekend for us to leave campus and explore the rest of the US, except that I did not own a car, and the flight prices were astronomical. Over the years, I visited Orlando one year to stay with a family friend, then New York City another, participating in the frenzy of the Black Friday shopping experience in Times Square. In junior year, I visited my boyfriend in Houston. The two of us had a meal by the San Antonio Riverwalk, with groups of families walking by.

Then came Denver, the snow, and the melancholy feeling of rootlessness. That was the last year when I traveled domestically during Thanksgiving because watching other people’s family reunions year after year was too brutal a reminder that I was far away from home. During the two Thanksgiving breaks after Denver, we visited Toronto and Mexico City where life went on as usual and where we could blend into the touristy crowd. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that international flights were more affordable than domestic ones during Thanksgiving.

Creating our own Thanksgiving tradition

After we moved in together and had our own place a few years ago, we finally started cooking our own Thanksgiving dinners and hosting friends, making this American tradition our own that once made us feel rootless and homesick. Unlike our friends who grew up here, there’s no family Thanksgiving tradition for us, but we’re creating our own now, first-generation style.

My husband learned to roast and carve a whole turkey from YouTube. I followed recipes from NYTimes cooking and Alison Roman’s annual Thanksgiving for sides and dessert inspiration.

A few days before the big day, we’d brine the turkey, make the pie dough, and bake the cornbread. On the morning of, we’d make the no-fail apple galette, the grandmother-style green beans from Melissa Clark’s instant-pot cookbook, the rich cornbread dressing with oysters, the mashed potatoes, and of course, put the bird in the oven.

Our Thanksgiving dinner has since been true Friendsgiving style, a gathering of friends whose families are also far away and friends whose families are too complicated to go back to. We hosted a few times, and in other years, we brought dishes to our friends who were hosting. These gathering moments are bittersweet, a group of friends treating each other like family while commiserating on the fact that none of us can be with our real families.

our Thanksgiving meals from the last few years.

After we moved to the Bay Area, we also developed the tradition of harvesting seafood on Friday or the weekend afterward, making a second feast out of our harvests, either clams, crabs, or fish.

2022's 2nd feast: crab congee and stir-fried crab with black pepper sauce

2021's 2nd feast: pan-fried whole fish and Cantonese-style steamed fish

Tomorrow will be my twelfth Thanksgiving holiday in the US. For me and my friends whom I spend Thanksgiving with, at least we have each other and our second feast packed with fresh seafood the weekend after.