I haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving at home with my own family in 12 years.

Why? It’s just too expensive to fly across the country for 4 days for Thanksgiving weekend, just to fly out again 3 weeks later for Christmas. And I just HAVE to go home for Christmas.

So every November since the age of 18, I’ve bounced around different places across the Northeast like a nomad, for the turkey holiday. Sometimes it would be whoever I was dating at the time’s family’s houses, but most times it would be spent with friend’s and their families.

There was even one year I spent it alone…and it was the most loneliest feeling ever.

That lonely Thanksgiving really put it all into perspective for me. It was then that I realized what I had all those years prior to, because it was no longer there. And for that reason, I want to say THANK YOU to anyone who has taken me in on this holiday.

THANK YOU to any of my friends who have invited me over for the holiday, and to anyone I’ve spent Thanksgiving with (including tonight). Thank you everyone for the tireless hours spent in the kitchen preparing the meals I consumed, and thank you for welcoming me into your homes like I was a part of your own families.

Thank you for the fried turkies, mac and cheese, jerk chicken, greens, ham, deer jerky, pasta salads, black beans, corn, buttery Parker house rolls, cheesecakes, mousse cakes, sparkling ciders, champagne, and anything you baked with love from scratch.

Thank you for the lively conversations, Taboo, cards, and Uno we would play after.

Thank you for letting me lay on the floor of your family room to recuperate because I ate so much, that I couldn’t.EVEN.MOVE…. and not judging me for it (okay, okay, this happened once…mayyyybe twice)!#embarassing

Thank you for all of the itis’s I’ve received from filling up on my first plates, just to eat seconds, knowing damn well I couldn’t handle it- but your food was so good, that gluttony got the best of me.

Thank you for all the to-go plates you all would insist I take home, letting me not have to worry about lunch for the next three days after.

But most of all, thank you for your hospitality… and for giving this girl, a transplant, a place where she could feel like she was right at home. Thank you for opening your arms and providing her with a sense of family, since she was so far away from her very own whom she loves and misses daily.

Thank you for making her feel loved.

I appreciate you all, and only hope that one day when I have my own home and my own family, I can give that to someone else.

THANK YOU. I am truly BLESSED!!

DAY 26