Happy Thanksgiving from Hong Kong!!!!!

So, it is here. Our first Thansgiving in Hong Kong. Obviously, Joe, Alex, and I are experiencing a lot of firsts and this is one. We had our first Halloween here. No trick-or-treaters in our complex, because it just wouldn't really work. You need security cards to get into each tower and our floor really only even accesses three doors, including ours. They had a big Halloween carnival on the grounds and I got to see all the families with their young children in costume and I smiled. Alex didn't dress up but went out with friends to Ocean Park (HK version of Great America) and it was all decked out for Halloween. In Hong Kong, that then signals the immediate transition into...Christmas! Yikes. There is no transitional holiday that eases you into it, like our Thansgiving. Nope, the day after Halloween, Santa was going up in our rotunda!

Joe did get to dress up because his Holiday party for associates was in early November and it was a theme...1960's Hong Kong nightlife. He wore a purple velvet blazer with a black skinny tie and a Beatles-like wig. This is him with his manager ready to go party:

Later that night, Joe and his beauty division managers did a Jackson 5 number. This came after they did a Hong Kong karaoke game where they made the executives listen to head phones with Cantonese lyrics of pop songs which they sang out and the first employee who could figure out what song they were TRYING to sing, won the round! I think some of the staff deliberately didn't come up with the name of the song so they could just continue to watch some poor executive up there stumble and butcher his way through a song for as long as possible! I can only imagine how hysterical it all must have been. I can't believe I'll never know what Joe was doing up there on stage, singing Cantonese or doing Jackson 5 choreagraphy in full costume and makeup. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! He won't let me post the Jackson 5 picture but just know, it's a good one! If only there was a video. I could make some big money to keep that out of the public domain and fly home once a month!

So, now the big 1st I've been dreading...Thanksgiving 2011. This is an interesting one to navigate for many reasons. We are down to only 3 of us here...plus Aspen! She LOVES the turkey so she counts. Of course, I will miss being near and around Windsor. I will miss gathering with my family. We've had different Thanksgiving celebrations though so I can handle all that and be open. The one thing I WILL struggle with is the fact that this is my MeliBeans first return home from college and I'm not gonna be there. No cooking all her favorite foods, no doing her laundry, no hugging her until she turns purple. NO getting mad at her when she wants to go see her friends and I want more of her time and attention. I am so filled with joy at the anticipation I hear from all the kids that are returning home right now, all her wonderful friends that she graduated with and that I love like my own. So if I am brutally honest, I am jealous. It just isn't gonna turn out like what I envisioned over my 18 years with her. I earned it! And now it just isn't fair! LOL! You know those holiday commercials where the parents wake up to the smell of coffee and come down the stairs to find their child HOME from college and its filled with hugging and reunion and...coffee??!! I fell for it. That was soooooo gonna be me! LOL!

Now that I've had a momenentary tantrum, let me assure you that I DO get to have that, only closer to Christmas in about 19 days (nope, I'm not counting at all!). And I'm gonna be just fine. My Melanie knows we love and are with her and she is going to be surrounded by the love of her Nana and Aunt Jackie and her other-mothers of Windsor. She will have more friends and fun than she will be able to fit into 4 whirlwind days. She is such a smart girl that she has written all her papers and done all her homework so she can just enjoy this time, sleep in a bed she doesn't have to climb a ladder to get into, and use a PRIVATE bathroom. So with those thoughts in my head I will spend the day smiling knowing just how blessed we are to have so many blessings in our life, so many amazing people that love us and stick with us through all our crazy adventures.

We have been invited to dinner tonight and they have promised to keep me laughing and off the floor and out of a fetal position! They have promised wine! And if we have a toast, mine will be filled with love and appreciation for my marriage, my children, my family, my friends, and my life - a life that is more than I could have even imagined for myself. THANK YOU!