Insider's Guide to Our Thanksgiving

All 40 RSVP's actually showed up. And a few brought a friend. We had one non-Princetonian, one US resident, and a whole bunch of grateful and hungry undergrads.

We didn't go out. (Except to snag some last minute provisions this morning.)

Instead, we spent our whole day inside, opening our home to as many international Princeton undergrads as we could possibly squeeze in.

Early on, it seemed as if Princeton maybe hadn't gone co-ed after all...

But soon enough, there were boys. And more girls. And standing room only.

In any given year, about ten percent of Princeton's freshman class comes from someplace other than the continental US. Because Princeton's financial aid policies are so incredibly generous, it is sometimes the case that these students come from families of very modest means. A ticket home for a holiday that is a non-event in their home country may well be an unaffordable indulgence. And what IS Thanksgiving, anyway? Not having grown up celebrating this particular holiday, the students who are left on campus are left pressing their noses up against the metaphorical windows of American abundance and excess.

In what has become our Thanksgiving tradition, we tuck them under our wing and try to offer them a "traditional" American Thanksgiving, while at the same time explaining to them how we've tweaked it to include them and a whole bunch of side dishes neither of us ever had growing up in upstate New York.

And the pressure is totally off. They're so happy and grateful, if I mess something up, we just laugh it off and make a note for next year. Ran out of ice cream. Could have skipped the crudites.

D has never known any other Thanksgiving. And his list of helper duties gets longer every year. Last year, washing the potatoes. This year, washing and MASHING!

There's not much left. But if the doorbell rang right now, I'd be the first one to invite whoever was standing on the stoop inside. There's still a little pie.

(Thanks to the women of Mama Says Om
for their continuing inspiration.)