This year, my best friend took me home over Thanksgiving. I’m from the UK so I’ve never celebrated it, so I thought I’d write about the holiday from an outsider’s point of view. I’m still not entirely sure why Thanksgiving is a thing, but I definitely enjoyed it.
The amount of food
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I feel like I’m still full and it’s been a week since Thanksgiving. The portion sizes in the US are already bigger than in the UK, but the number of food options was overwhelming. I wanted to taste as many typical Thanksgiving foods as possible, so I tried a lot of what was offered, including green bean casserole (despite hating green beans). Just as a note, have you ever noticed how beige a lot of Thanksgiving foods are?
Missing family
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At times, it was bittersweet to spend so much time with my best friend’s family when I haven’t seen mine in months. They were all so incredibly kind and welcoming so it wasn’t too difficult, but it hit me when I was playing with her dog how much I miss mine, so that was kinda hard. America seems to have 5 billion holidays throughout the year and I think they find a lot of ways to spend time with family. So even though I don’t celebrate Thanksgiving and I’m still not sure why you actually do, I’m definitely not against it. I really like how you all take the time to come together, even if it means having to drive all over the place to do so.
Football
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In the UK, people don’t really watch TV on holidays like this. On Christmas Day, some people will tune in for The Queen’s Speech or the dramatic Christmas Day episode of Eastenders, but televisions typically stay off for the majority of the day. However, here it seems pretty normal for a bunch of people to gather around the TV and watch football all day. I’m definitely not complaining (I love football) but it was super confusing to me that no one was getting mad about the television being on. Also, it was quite funny to see how different family members who supported opposing teams interacted while the game was on.
Pie
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To me, this deserves a little write up of its own. You guys really go to town on pie. Pie is pretty much strictly savory in the UK, think pork pie, steak and kidney etc. But over the break, I had the option of cherry, pecan, butterscotch, apple, banana cream, and of course pumpkin. There was also an apple pie jello shot, which I thought summed up how pie-obsessed America seems to be.
The speed with which Christmas decorations go up
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In the UK, no one has decorations up before December, and I was always told that it was unlucky. I guess you do get some super keen people who put up Christmas lights on the outside of their house, but most people I know find that really weird and I can’t help thinking about their electricity bill. This Thanksgiving, I helped my best friend and her family put up her Christmas decorations on Friday and I was confused about why no one was concerned about the bad luck they were bringing on themselves. It went from Thanksgiving to Christmas in a blink of an eye.
Photos courtesy of: Katie Mercer