Thanksgiving and the Olive Harvest

Although Thanksgiving is one of my favourite holidays, I have once again failed to celebrate it in any sort of satisfactory way. Perhaps once baby is born I'll be more organized, knowing that my failure to observe Canadian holidays will mean he or she grows up a stranger to them! But in the meantime, I am repeatedly surprised at the way these holidays creep up on me and I am too busy to cook an appropriate meal or arrange a dinner with friends.

Today, instead of feeling sad that I can't be with my Canadian family eating turkey, cranberries and mashed sweet potatoes, followed by pecan pie, I want to be thankful for the way I did spend the day yesterday.

C and I drove the short forty-five minutes it takes to get into the mountains just north of our city, where friends of ours have a chalet, or yayla. The drive alone is breathtaking; but even more amazing is the entirely different climate. You step out of the car and feel like you've flown twelve hours across an ocean, so dry and fresh is the air, so much cooler the temperature. There were yellow leaves on the ground (the way there should be in autumn!), and the smell of wood-burning fireplaces in the air.

The highlight of my day was picking olives from our friends' six-year-old trees -- mere babies, but the perfect size for a pregnant woman in her eighth month, since I didn't have to climb up any ladders! Come to think of it, it's the first time I've spent Thanksgiving doing what the holiday is originally about: harvesting the season's fruit.