Thanksgiving and Community

"You won't understand the unabashed power of a community until you are part of one." -Jon Acuff

A house that has 3 people somehow expanded to accommodate 8 people for 4 days and 3 nights.  It endured a truth or dare jenga, Thanksgiving cooking and dinner, a social affair, and the craziness of packing 8 people into a car for a trip to LA after all of that.  It was a blast and a highlight of being out in California!

We all knew that Thanksgiving was going to be different and a little emotional not being with our families.  For me it was much harder than expected and luckily got busy prepping the turkey.  Each one of us took the opportunity to talk to family at home, but also pushed forward to make a delicious meal and have a lot of fun together.  We were also able to Skype with the other AV communities and were once again "together" (sorry Peru and Deena!). 

The week before I made lists upon lists of what needed to be cleaned, what needed to be bought, what needs to happen on the food front, potential plans for the day, and where oh where are we going to fit 5 extra people.  No matter how many lists I made, I was still lying in bed wondering if the turkey would blow up in the oven.  Simultaneously I was planning the last segment of our Thanksgiving box distribution at Help of Ojai and dealing with a different type of turkey saga.  The Thanksgiving box distribution went well and the local schools and churches gave very generously this year.  When handing out food that is based off donation, it's always a very nice surprise to have extra go to our very low stocked pantry.

Thanksgiving arrives and Patty, Ryan and I decided to run a Turkey Trot 5K.  Why not add any more stress to this day? For cooking we had a system of who would prep and cook when.  It of course is only slightly used and everything worked out.  All that worrying has gone to waste and the turkey did not blow up!  The only glitch was me buying chorizo for the sausage stuffing, which is clearly not Polish but still delicious.  We had a beautiful setting (thanks Nicole!) and flowers (thanks Francis!) for our table and a picture (thanks Brian!) to commemorate this day.  We also were able to taste one of the most best apple pies ever made (thanks Martha!).

While on Skype with our other communities we went around and all said something we were thankful for.  We all have a lot to be thankful for always, but right now I am most thankful for the community that we continue to build across the country.  Not many people understand what this AV Tangerine Dream life is like and I often struggle to find words for what we do. I think that Jon Acuff describes it best, there truly is an abashed power behind our community.