Thanksgiving has always been a bit of a puzzler for me. You’d think after so many years in America it would have ingratiated itself a little more into my psyche. Maybe the message of giving thanks was steamrollered under the avalanche of Christmas ‘you gotta have this or what even are you?’ advertising. So many retail workers had to go to bed early to meet the 4am opening times on ‘Black Friday’ I wondered how they even had time for dessert. Then, even their Thanksgiving breakfast disappeared because we all had to have ‘that thing’ before the Macy’s Day Parade started at nine o’clock in the morning. I never went shopping over Thanksgiving as I felt so sorry for everyone.
Anyway, after fighting the weather, the crowds, the airports, the roads to get to grandma’s house, the whole day appeared nothing but eating, watching a parade, then watching football. The first suited me, the second was okay because there was probably a blizzard howling outside anyway so what else could you do? The third left me cold, and that was nothing to do with the blizzard. Football was Christmas ads every five seconds during the entire game and a lot of large men standing around flipping their mouth guards in and out. That could put you off your mashed potato.
So if I struggled to see the Thanksgiving light in America, how on earth could I be expected to see it now I live back in England? But search for it I must. I have an American husband and my children were raised in America. They seek that continuation of tradition and familiarity now they live in the UK and I get that. I used to miss Guy Fawkes Day, Trooping of The Colour, and Boxing Day traditions tremendously during my expat years. So, let’s give Thanksgiving – Exmoor-style – a go.
First hurdle: have you tried finding a turkey in November in England? No? Don’t bother. They won’t be ready until Christmas. They’re still in the egg in November. Beef Wellington it is then. Pumpkin pie? Forget it. If you’re prepared to pay a restaurant three-course meal price, you can order three small cans of pumpkin puree on Amazon and make your own, which I did because, well, I’m trying to be a good dual citizen. I’m usually pretty good at pumpkin pie but the kitchen remodel and extension work in progress meant I had to attempt the feat at night a couple of days before the guests arrived. There was limited lighting and the oven hadn’t taken well to being moved to a different spot so that a new, shiny version could at some point in the future take its place. That oven bore a grudge and switched off halfway through the bake. The pie looked a bit rough but tasted okay if you’d never had one before. If you had any kind of comparison, it may have left you wanting.
Guests arrived and I pondered what to do with them. Hubby, daughter, and Cousin B woke up Thanksgiving morning with high hopes for a cultural experience. Cousin B had never experienced Thanksgiving before, except for watching the Charlie Brown special, so she was excited to see what all the fuss was about. Crickets chirped and brick dust flew around the kitchen, accompanied by the holiday sounds of drilling through walls, smashing up floor tiles and builder’s rock music. Builders don’t take Thanksgiving off in England, apparently. The good news was all the local coffee shops were open so we could leave the house for a break. That break turned into a longer walk. Now, an Exmoor walk is a treasure that brings wonder and delight to me every time, but it doesn’t scream Thanksgiving. No matter. When we get home, we’ll stream the Macy’s Day Parade, I think. That will put us in the mood, I think. No chance. We couldn’t view it over any of our paid channels or our phones. Cousin B frowned, probably wondering how Thanksgiving was any different to, say, her August visit to our house. So far it wasn’t. It was just noisier and dustier and colder.
Chilly darkness fell and the builders left. We mucked out what was left of the kitchen and set about cooking. One person became the designated runner, scurrying between the kitchen and the dining room and the front room and the hallway, searching through boxes for whatever pan, knife, baking tray, or spatula we needed. Eureka! Someone found the glittering turkey centrepiece and the wooden pilgrims Californian friends gifted us my first Thanksgiving in America. We toasted the find with a glass of Prosecco, having first found the champagne flutes under the batteries and the shoe cleaning kit in the downstairs shower room.
We managed to produce a meal. Not a pretty meal. Not a traditional Thanksgiving meal, but a meal that left no one tasting brick dust and to my knowledge, no one becoming ill. Of course, they could have kept this quiet. They want to come back next year, strangely enough. So now what? How does one make it Thanksgiving-y when there’s no football or cheesy Thanksgiving special on TV?
Kerplunk to the rescue! Haven’t played that in a million years but Cousin B has given it to Daughter K for Christmas so the gift gets unwrapped early and off we go. It’s every bit as much of a hoot as we remember. We cheat, laugh, accuse, eat chocolate, and reminisce about holidays past. We message other family members in the UK and the US to fill them in on who’s winning and who’s cheating the worst and I finally get it: The Thanksgiving spirit.
It’s not about food, parades, or football at all. It’s not about the beautiful table setting or the lovely gravy boat we couldn’t find or the missing cranberry and parsley garnish or stepping over boxes to squeeze around the dining table. It’s about the laughs and the mess and the chaos of families. It’s about the Kerplunk cheating and the wood fire because the house is so cold due to the remodel. We can be thankful for so much through all that.
Despite the missing turkey and the extravagant cost of the pumpkin pie, maybe Thanksgiving is better in England. No traffic snarl-ups on the way to our house. No blizzards. No pressure to spend the day shopping. Yep. I think this British Thanksgiving may become a favourite holiday. And next year, we’ll have a real kitchen. And maybe, just maybe, we will have found that gravy boat.
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Images: Stills from Cousin B’s video, and author’s own.