Saturday, December 3, 2011

thanksgiving break.

... and a week later, I'm going to talk about my Thanksgiving in Boston.

I had a two day work week because of the holiday. Monday was a normal day, but Tuesday was Casserly House Thanksgiving. I was in charge of planning a Thanksgiving Prayer Service/Party for the kids in the afternoon. It was easily the most intense afternoon I have had so far at Casserly House, but I survived and they liked my cookies (chocolate chip, funfetti, and snickerdoodles -- would you expect anything less from me?).

While the afternoon was mildly chaotic, Tuesday morning with the ESOL students was incredibly touching; we did a craft where the students had to write down things that they were thankful for, and I absolutely loved being able to share this experience of gratitude with them. The opportunity to work with and get to know the ESOL students is one of the things I am most thankful for from this year, and ironically, a few of them actually put down that they were thankful for me (along with S. Nancy and the other teachers). That is still so weird to think about... Yes, I may be the one they call "teacher," but they are the ones who are really teaching me. Truly, I'm the one who is thankful.

Tuesday night, we had our official community Thanksgiving dinner with our Jesuit liaison, Peter. We went pretty traditional for the dinner (turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, biscuits, stuffing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie), and it was great to spend that time together.

Wednesday was pretty relaxed since I had the day off work. On Thursday, we went to Women's Lunch Place, where one of my housemates works, for Thanksgiving lunch. Our actual Thanksgiving dinner that night, however, was tamales Cristina's mom sent us all the way from LA! Mexican food for Thanksgiving may not be traditional, but it was certainly delicious.

After dinner, we watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, then meandered down to Foley's to pay a visit to Dave, our favorite bartender. He had hinted heavily the week before that apple pie was his favorite kind, so I baked one and we took it with us (full discretion: it's my favorite too). Foley's is something of a JVC Boston tradition, so it seemed only fitting that we spend our Thanksgiving there.

On Friday, we volunteered as a community for lunch at Women's Lunch Place. Women's Lunch Place is a completely different environment from where I work, and it was really wonderful to see where Abby works and to know more fully what her experience this year is like.

The rest of our long weekend was pretty relaxed. We went to a movie (The Descendants--pretty good!), watched some movies, went out on Saturday night, and I worked on grad school applications on Sunday.

All in all, Thanksgiving break was really nice, and while it was a little sad not being at home, it also just seemed fitting to spend this time with my community within the context of this year and our time together.

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