Don’t tell me you don’t know what today is! It’s just the biggest holiday in America outside of the gloriously commercial three months of Christmas. What – you don’t know?
Well, me neither. Since moving to England, I’ve found that the fourth Thursday in November comes round just like the first, second and third ones and it’s not until a fellow American reminds me that I realise it’s Thanksgiving.
It’s not that I don’t like it. I’ve always loved the holiday, whose name conjures memories of my mother’s fancy holiday tablecloth, the china platter with the picture of a turkey on it, the electric warming basket for the dinner rolls.
Every year the menu and the guest list is reassuringly the same: my Aunt Elaine’s compulsively irresistible sausage ball hors d’oeuvres, my Aunt Sarah’s watermelon pickles and chocolate pie, the green bean casserole (Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, Durkee french-fried onions) that my brother demands, and my mother’s greatest hits line-up: Grandmother Blanche’s cranberry relish recipe with an entire apple and orange ground in, my mother’s slightly burnt pecan pie (sorry, Mom), her perfectly cooked turkeys and homemade stuffing.
(Fellow expat bloggers I Carried a Watermelon and A Modern Mother have suggested they’d like to have American-brand Stove Top Stuffing. Tsk tsk.)
But the truth is, not only can’t I easily remember Thanksgiving is coming now – none of our friends from school are celebrating, nobody has the day off work, THERE IS NO TELEVISED SPORTS! – but I can’t get excited about doing the American abroad version.
I tried that once when a New York friend came to visit. I invited several enthusiastic but clueless British friends. “I wanted to bring an American dessert,” one said excitedly when she arrived. “So I brought Krispy Kreme donuts!” We had plates of pecan pie a la mode, with glazed donuts. Bless.
“I don’t like to celebrate here,” an American friend confided in me a couple days ago. “It’s a bit sad and lonely because it’s just us, not the extended family.”
Being a transplanted American and now fully paid up British citizen, I realise there are some ways of thinking and acting that I wouldn’t give up for the world. But Thanksgiving doesn’t translate for me. When I celebrate it, I want to do so my family’s traditional way, with the traditional food, with my parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins there.
I’m looking forward to the traditional British mince pies and Chrismas crackers next month with my British family. But Aunt Sarah’s watermelon pickles will have to wait.
I love Stove Top and I’m not afraid to admit it!
We do Thanksgiving every year with my British friends. The highlight is when I make them wear a turkey hat and tell everyone what they are thankful for.
Happy expat Thanksgiving!
Jx
@Julia Thanks, lady! I do miss my version in America. Maybe I should introduce a turkey hat!
The thing is , the turkeys aren’t ready yet. We need to wait a month for them to fatten up. Happy Thanksgiving!
We may even have a tur-duck-en for Christmas, in which case they all need to be big.
I’m celebrating Thanksgiving for the first time in seven years. Like you, the holiday had been overlooked and almost forgotten. However… I was bitten by the holiday bug this year and had a floating day off, so I decided we would celebrate.
It’s all coming together, even the Libby’s pumpkin pie and whipped cream from a can 🙂
Blog post to follow…
Libby’s! Oh how I’ve missed you…
Look forward to the blog post. Definitely tweet me with it.
I made a pumpkin pie!
Happy Thanksgiving! This English girl is making pumpkin pie for her American kids here in California!
Love it! I hope you also make them mince pies come December.
It’s a bit odd when you’re a non-American in the USA too. There is so much hoop-la over here about Thanksgiving, not to mention a lot of anxiety, and I just can’t relate. My husband has made the entire meal, I’m not allowed in the kitchen. Obviously no one trusts me to do is right, although they have adhered to my ban on the bloody green bean casserole.
And everyone is sitting watching football, a sport that I don’t understand even after all these years, and have no interest in following. Hmm..
Sounds marvelous!
Happy Thanksgiving to you anyway x
Got choked up and teary somewhere around the electric bun warmer! I had totally forgotten about that bun warmer: it had a striped cloth zippered top in shades of blues (the whole family is really into blues/aquas/bit of soft purple) with a wicker bottom. In hindsight: how was that not a fire hazard?
I really wonder what happened to that device.
Our thanksgiving this year was a complete, full on Thanksgiving meal – excellent – in miniature, complete with a perfectly roasted, English free range corn fed chicken (on sale, nearly past its sell by date, bought on the day). Our cat was very grateful and my English husband loved the chicken and roast potatoes, but didn’t touch the rest. I didn’t have time to make the Libby’s pumpkin pie: I made that last night, for me.
There are years we go home, but this year our widowed mother said she’s going on a cruise with her friends, and we’re all fending for ourselves. It’s really comforting to know I’m not alone, feeling this way. And while I’m not by nature an envious person, I am so jealous of Expat Mum: my husband would not cook dinner if you paid him.
Happy Thanksgiving: I’m glad we met and grateful for this post, even if it did make me cry.