a time for kankfulness

You probably thought I'd given up on Way Back When-sday, didn't you? Well, you would be wrong. It's just that I forget a lot, or I run out of time and/or creativity. But today-- you are in luck. Or you're about to be bored. One of these.

A long time ago, back in the year 2003 (can you remember back that far?), I was a junior in college and I shared a townhouse with some of my favorite people in the whole world (and also one girl who was NOT OUR FAVORITE PERSON IN THE WHOLE WORLD, but I think that by this point she had left and anyways, I'm not bitter or anything still. Hahaha. Girls, are you with me here???) (OK, seriously I'm NOT bitter still. I hadn't even thought about that in a long time. It just came to me.) ANYWAYS, getting back on track. We were, as all college-aged girls living with their BFFs and living the American dream (my American dream, anyway), very thankful for our many blessings and our friendships and our sweet kitty-cats and our amazing hostessing and cooking skills, and so- much like our ancestors before us (although not MY ancestors, because my ancestors were still living in Italy until like 15 minutes ago or something)- we decided to host a feast in order to celebrate all of the good things in our lives. And YES, I should receive an award for the World's Longest Sentence (see previous sentence).


No doubt, we all loved our families very much. We looked forward to spending 'real' Thanksgiving with them, and we still do. But there's something to be said for having a special event just for the friends and roommates and neighbors who make your everyday life so worth living. So we set a date, and we made invitations, and we planned and cleaned and cooked and decorated within an inch of our lives, and this is how Kanksgiving was born. Kanksgiving: A Time to be Kankful.


It is possible that you don't understand the whole "kank" thing, and that's probably because you weren't a part of my circle of friends from 2001 until present, and for that I am sad for you. To define 'kank' would be to strip it of its glory, so I will have to move on without further explanation and leave you instead to ponder and wonder about the meaning.


We celebrated Kanksgiving in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2008. We planned and prepared to celebrate it in 2007, but were unable to due to the sudden and unexpected death of a good friend of ours on the very day of Kanksgiving. That year, our joy turned into mourning, but the mourning was 'better,' if that is possible, because it was in the company of the friends who had all already traveled to be together that weekend. We ended up cooking our turkey anyway, that day, because he was already defrosted and seasoned, we were all hungry, and what the heck else were we supposed to do with a 15 pound bird? I have no pictures from that year.


But in the other years, there was never been a shortage of pictures at Kanksgiving. Trying to narrow down the pictures to post here was really tricky, especially because these early years of Kanksgiving were PRE-FACEBOOK (which will no doubt one day be an actual designation of time, just like B.C. or something) and it occurred to me that some of the roomies actually might not have seen these pictures in a really long time/ever!


 First of all, the hostesses ALWAYS take pictures of themselves cooking. It's just the way things are done. And also, the Santa apron was an essential.

Me, 2003

Kristina, 2003

 

The hostesses/roomies: Kristina, Elizabeth, me, Catherine (2003)

Our banquet table, food, and friends (2003)

Most years (except, I guess, 2003) we remembered to take pictures of the ceremonial Stuffing of Tom. (Every turkey is named Tom, by the way) This is photo-worthy because, as suburban-raised 20-year-olds, we hadn't had much experience touching raw poultry, and this gave us huge amounts of Mom Points to do this nasty thing. I'm pretty sure, actually, that ONLY Kristina and Elizabeth even touched the bird for the first 2 years. I was a little slow to jump on board THAT fun-train.

Elizabeth and Kristina stuffing Tom, 2004

Me stuffing Tom, 2005

James, stuffing Tom, 2008

 

Kristina and Elizabeth with a nicely baked Tom, 2004

Hostesses, 2004

Hostesses, 2005

We used to wonder, as young, pre-marriage, pre-"real life" adults, whether our future "real" Thanksgivings would ever measure up to the greatness of Kanksgiving. We even discussed one day, when we were "real" adults in charge of our own families and lives, choosing to continue celebrating Kanksgiving...perhaps even on THANKSGIVING DAY (instead of a convenient weekend in the months surrounding Thanksgiving: yes, Kanksgiving has been celebrated as early as October and as late as December! Note: it really sucked trying to buy a turkey in October!! No one had them!). Because Kanksgiving was the perfect mixture of friendship and love and laughter and teamwork...exactly the kind of drama-free fun that every Thanksgiving should be. And so really, I'm still hoping that one day we do it. :) Or at least that we re-institute our tradition, even if it's not on Thanksgiving Day. EVERY day is a good day to be Kankful, after all.

Stine, Lobello, and Ray: Writing this made my heart feel very happy and also made me miss you all very much. And miss posing for pictures in that corner of the living room. And miss the Santa apron. And the 115. And Elizabeth's sofa-bed with green and white checks. And lots more. I love you girls!