Talking Turkey

Thanksgiving in Sweden came a few days early for us.  This Sunday we were invited by our Swedish friends Maria and Patrik to a Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, sponsored by the English Speaking Community Club of Sweden.  Maria, a Brazilian national who married her Swedish sweetheart Patrik, have been in our social circle from the start of our Scandinavian adventure. We met them at a chilly July 4^th celebration sponsored by the American Club of Sweden eight days after we arrived on these Swedish shores.

So there we sat together, this slightly offset Thanksgiving Day at Kompott at Karlburgsvägen 52 in the middle of Stockholm eating turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie with our hot tamale Brazilian friend and her husband with his light up/flashing bowtie.  There was something just so very American about this mingling of cultures and people.

It is not until you are very distant from borders that stretch from sea to shining sea that you acquire an appreciation for the uniqueness that America has in the world. There are some cultures where one’s heritage can be instantly recognized by how they look. Chinese, Guatemalan, African.

People from all the over world

Even Swedes have distinctiveness. Not all are blonde. Body types and hair color may vary, but one would be hard pressed to find a Marlboro man among them. Such an image is simply not part of the cultural fabric.  At the same time, Americans can look Chinese, Guatemalan, African, rugged or even Swedish. We are a society that has assumed the look of all the people living on this planet.  

Vincent told the story of the Pilgrims

So this group of English speakers spoke to the American phenomena of people gathering from about the world in common cause.  Vincent, the club president, offered opening comments that included a reciting of the history of the first Thanksgiving dating back to the 1621 Pilgrim celebration with their native American Indian neighbors.   

He added that at this afternoon’s dinner, people from 10 different countries were participating in this year’s celebratory dinner.  Among us were those from the US, the UK, South Africa, Tobago, Brazil, Sweden and others lost to our failing recall ability.  Accuracy in the nationality count, however, melted into irrelevancy as conversation in variously accented English ensued.

We take for granted the family gatherings, expansive meals, football games and time idly spent in familial interaction on Thanksgiving Day. For Swedes, Christmas is the time for family gatherings and expansive meals. But Christmas also includes exchanging presents, trimming trees and in a not very distant past, a church service.  Thanksgiving in comparison seems rather unencumbered. 

Elizabeth

We enjoyed our meal and our time at the restaurant. We shared conversations with Maria and Patrik, but sat in vicarious horror as a new acquaintance, Elizabeth, recounted the crime and sense of violation as blind white dominance has been transformed into blind black dominance in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Yes, we had much to be thankful for this early Thanksgiving Day. A wonderful meal with new friends and the reassurance that that there is, at least, one place on this planet capable of re-making itself, generation after generation, into a home for the world’s “huddled masses, yearning to breath free.”