THANKSGIVING 2025
I’ve been living in Los Angeles for years, but I always carry a piece of Italy with me, which is probably why Thanksgiving still hits me in a strange way. Italians think it’s all turkey, parades, movies, and Black Friday madness. Here, instead, it’s something simpler: a day when people actually stop, breathe, and say “thank you” without embarrassment. For someone who wasn’t born here, it’s almost disarming.
The story is old: 1621, Pilgrims and Wampanoag sharing a harvest meal. A lunch that saved lives and somehow created the most intimate holiday in America. More heartfelt than Christmas.
And the turkey? Everyone asks me. The truth is: it was just the easiest animal to cook for a crowd. End of story. But I always joke about it: it reminds me of those big guys who act tough and melt the moment you hug them. Maybe that’s why people love it so much — it’s funny, tender, a little ridiculous. Perfect.
My Thanksgiving here in L.A. looks nothing like the New England postcards.
No snow, no fireplace: we eat outside, under a sun that feels like spring. The table is a world map: turkey next to tacos, sushi next to pumpkin pie. Three languages mixing, and that suspended Los Angeles atmosphere — like a movie scene you never fully leave.
This year went like this: long conversations, random laughter, people coming and going, and that quiet moment when you realize that “home” is where you feel safe, even if it’s not where you were born.
My favorite part always comes after dessert.
We go around the table and say what we’re grateful for. There’s the one who cries after three words, the one who talks for half an hour, the silent one staring at their plate. And me, as usual, somewhere in the middle trying not to ruin my mascara. Same scene every year, and it still works.
Then comes the classic American part: the Macy’s Parade, the President “pardoning” a turkey, kitchens smelling like cinnamon, and Black Friday exploding like a battlefield the next morning. At my house I always say the turkey is sacrificed on Thursday and avenged on Friday. It’s become tradition.
But what people in Italy don’t see is the emotional side. Thanksgiving is a pause in a country that never stops running. A moment when people remember they have feelings, not just schedules. And if you live far from your roots, like I do, it’s also a way to see how far you’ve come without noticing.
That was my Thanksgiving 2025. No special effects. Just sunlight, pumpkin, a tender turkey, the people I love, and that gentle nostalgia that shows up softly, like a polite visitor who doesn’t disturb.
SARA DAL MONTE 