I have fond and not so fond memories of Thanksgiving Days from my youth and my first marriage, respectively, and I cannot recall ever having cooked a dinner on that day while I lived in the United States of America. I most certainly haven’t cooked anything that celebrates Thanksgiving since I’ve lived in Mexico, coming up on two decades. Later this afternoon, it will be much like any other day in Mexico, in that people go to work and come home and eat, and then sleep early in order to go back to work on Friday. Except that here in Baja, there are many families that work in the United States of America and might receive one or two days off, and except that in some of the larger supermarkets I have seen stuffing and other traditional Thanksgiving Day food, tomorrow will mostly be like any other day.

Anna will go to school, the late-November air will warm the house in the afternoon, and at some point I will go to the store and buy something to cook. Neither Rocio nor Juan will work today, and since it is likely that many of Juan’s friends will also not work, I’ll likely wind up cooking a large dinner, regardless. There will be no turkey, no stuffing, no cranberry sauce. Perhaps I will make a nice, hearty stew. Maybe I will bake some corn bread.

There is no Thanksgiving Day in Mexico. This is because most of the millions of indigenous people that were here when the Spaniards arrived, either died (mostly from diseases they had no immunity to, while others were simply slaughtered), or they were assimilated. The Spaniards, apparently, had no trouble coming up with enough food to sustain their conquering soldiers, so that by the time the real colonists arrived, the natives were not in any position to offer anything to anyone. The Spaniards felt no need to say thank you for the gold and the land. They took what they wanted, imposed their God on the natives, and introduced bullfighting, smallpox, flan, horses, and the concept of land ownership.

Neither the Aztecs nor the Maya – well, the one’s that hadn’t already died from smallpox – felt compelled to thank the Spaniards, either. This is what happens.

As I say, I have very fond memories of Thanksgiving Days from when I was very young, growing up in Suburban Los Angeles. Sometimes Thanksgiving would be celebrated at the house I grew up in, and other times, back when extended family lived close by, we would go to their house. The food was always so wonderful. The celebration was a non sequitur; I don’t even remember a prayer nor any reference to colonists or natives. The grown-ups drank, cooked, and talked, and us kids eventually sat at temporary tables when dinner was ready.

In some ways I appreciated those Thanksgiving feasts even more as I grew into my teens, but in other ways I had learned to become disappointed in some of my extended family, and even in my own direct relations. A cousin here and an uncle there - at one time people in which I could find no fault, were obviously and suddenly not so likeable. And my own immediate family who I love dearly to this very day did not always treat certain relatives properly. These were opinions I kept to myself. It was only when I was older that could mention it in conversation. I was rewarded then, when they said, “Perhaps, perhaps.”

Some of that extended family I haven’t seen in twenty years. Some, I haven’t seen in thirty years or longer. Many are deceased. None, to my knowledge, live in Southern California anymore. Some of them I would very much like to see again. Others, not so much. Blood may be thicker than water, but it isn’t as sticky as Velcro. I am stuck to Baja, and she is stuck to me. Like Velcro hook and Velcro loop, we seem to have found ourselves perfectly inseparable.

My first marriage, the memories from which I’ve spent over twenty years purging from my brain - successfully mostly - can be easily defined by the Thanksgiving dinners with her family that I somehow endured. All of these meetings took place in or near Loma Linda, California. If you’ve ever visited Loma Linda on a Saturday, then you might have been surprised to find the entire town closed. They should erect large signs:

"Welcome to Loma Linda. Closed Saturdays."

Apparently, Loma Linda is to Seventh Day Adventists what Salt Lake City is to Mormons. The Seventh Day Adventists believe, predominantly, that the Sabbath is celebrated on Saturday. And it’s not simply a day to go to church; it’s a day in which you do absolutely nothing. No television, and only radio if it is religious programming. The other lifestyle choice of this particular religion? They are vegetarians. Apparently, they believe in something they call modern day saints, and one of them believes that eating meat isn’t such a good thing to do.

Perhaps, perhaps.

This made Thanksgivings spent with the family of my ex-wife quite strange. And, because apparently I had turned into a weak and docile shell of that which I really am, I went with it. I ate fake meat. They prayed like crazy, as if all of humanity depended on it. I stepped outside and smoked the occasional cigarette. I spent far too much time in Loma Linda. I ate far too much faux turkey. I didn’t drink enough liquor back then.

Except for the last Thanksgiving I spent there. Because, every Thanksgiving was spent there while I was married to my ex-wife. The last one, they cooked a small turkey, alongside whatever fake meat products they normally prepared. That small turkey was meant only for me. I was enraged, and insulted. For years they fed me fake meat only to belittle me in the end with some small, dry, overcooked Goddamned turkey. When I got home, I had a drink, it was the first time I drank in years, and it felt good.

Months later, my ex-wife’s infidelity gifted me with what I have now. Karma, baby, pure karma. It would have been nicer, and that much more appropriate if it would have happened on a Saturday, but I take what’s gifted to me. And I wound up in Mexico. Sweet. Happy Thanksgiving, bitch. Hope that yours were equally as exciting.

My first Fourth of July living in Mexico, I got drunk and I had a lot of explosives. While, at that time, I couldn’t understand what the Mexican kids that lived in my neighborhood were saying, I certainly understood that they had surmised that they had stumbled on a gringo gone mad. My first two years in Mexico wasn’t stellar, I didn’t understand how things worked here. I blew up anything and everything that evening. I’m pretty sure that I blew up many memories from my first marriage. I blew up the Sabbath, I blew up Thanksgiving, and I blew up my past. That felt so good.

The Thanksgivings and the Fourth’s of July that followed were mute, I had learned my lesson. Over fifteen years go by and the other evening, Daniel reminded me of what many of my Mexican friends would prompt me for. Thanksgiving is all about the food, obviously. Except they would never call it Thanksgiving.

“Turkey day!” they would tell me.

“No. This is Mexico. I don’t celebrate it.”

And Daniel, my brother in law who asked about it the other evening, was disappointed. He knows that I cook two or three turkeys on Christmas Day. That is my day of thanks. That is our day of thanks. He is one greedy bastard.

“This is Mexico,” I said. “Come on Thanksgiving afternoon, and you’ll get what I cook. Want turkey and dressing? Come on Christmas evening. You know the drill. I want you here.”

And so, I have run the entire circuit. And I’m sort of proud of that. Turkey day? Not so much. My thanks is not limited to a single day, although this day does remind me to say thanks that I don’t feel compelled to say thanks. Maybe we just blow something up and get over it. This is what happens.