The holiday season is upon us. If you haven’t purchased your turkey, you better get a move on. We are less than two weeks away from Thanksgiving.
In the run up to Thanksgiving, my memory goes back to Thanksgivings as a child, when all my family got together–parents fighting over whether the main meal that day would be at “his” or “her” parents’ house. During college years, Thanksgiving celebrations were often dictated by football schedules. One year, Thanksgiving was a turkey Sandwich at Legion Field during the Alabama-Auburn football game. My first Thanksgiving celebrated away from home–away from someone else doing the cooking, away from someone else having to clean the house up, and away from someone else having to set the table–was in England.
That is to say, there was no Thanksgiving.
I knew that Thanksgiving was a uniquely American holiday/ observance. But for some reason, when the day came I was unprepared. It was like being in a parallel universe. Here was this holiday that brought everything in the United States–including the malls–to a grinding halt and everything around me in Britain was going full tilt. All the stores were open. They were bustling with people and were decorated in their Christmas marketing campaigns–and had been since the end of October.
The circuit I was serving knew about Thanksgiving, at least in general. All my parishioners would come up to me and wish me a “Happy Thanksgiving”. Now I need to pause and talk about the weekly rhythm of the town that anchored the circuit I served–Retford. The town had a market on Thursday and Saturday–had done so since at least the publishing of the Doomsday Book. One of the churches I was assigned to sponsored a reduced price lunch on Thursday. We fed more people than I ever thought possible. And this was done, in part, because there were so many people in the area for whom that meal was the only hot meal of the week.
Now, kind reader, I know what you are thinking. It would be sweet to think that for lunch on the Market Day that just so happened to fall on Thanksgiving day, lunch would be turkey, cornbread dressing–yes cornbread dressing, not some silly stuffing that tastes gross and gives you salmonella poisoning–, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and cranberry jelly. And pumpkin pie for dessert. That would have been real nice.
Didn’t happen.
But just in case, I made plans. I procured all the accouterments required to make a Thanksgiving feast. I ordered a turkey. I went to the grocery store and begged the manager to order cornmeal for me. I even had a family member ship me a can of cranberry jelly. I made green bean casserole, complete with my best can of cream of mushroom soup (best can meaning no dent, thanks Grandma). I even made pie dough from scratch and made pumpkin pie. And I ate it. All by myself.
The English have an analogue to Thanksgiving. They call them harvest festivals. Not fixed on any day but, rather, occurring any time from early September to mid-October, these are local celebrations that have their roots in the culmination of the growing season. There are special worship services, the community gathers for a big meal, and there is a charity auction of produce grown in the area, usually auctioned by a local hero or minor celebrity. And while these were fun occasions in September, by the time we got to the last Thursday in November all my neighbors had filed any sense of thanks-giving away until next September and were full steam into the Christmas Season.
And this felt weird. It was the first time in my life when I was truly de-centered. Assumptions were questioned. What were cultural norms to that point went out the window. It was at that moment that I truly became an expat. And my life has never been the same, since.
For that, I am truly thankful.
Thanksgiving in England
In the run up to Thanksgiving, my memory goes back to Thanksgivings as a child, when all my family got together–parents fighting over whether the main meal that day would be at “his” or “her” parents’ house. During college years, Thanksgiving celebrations were often dictated by football schedules. One year, Thanksgiving was a turkey Sandwich at Legion Field during the Alabama-Auburn football game. My first Thanksgiving celebrated away from home–away from someone else doing the cooking, away from someone else having to clean the house up, and away from someone else having to set the table–was in England.
That is to say, there was no Thanksgiving.
I knew that Thanksgiving was a uniquely American holiday/ observance. But for some reason, when the day came I was unprepared. It was like being in a parallel universe. Here was this holiday that brought everything in the United States–including the malls–to a grinding halt and everything around me in Britain was going full tilt. All the stores were open. They were bustling with people and were decorated in their Christmas marketing campaigns–and had been since the end of October.
The circuit I was serving knew about Thanksgiving, at least in general. All my parishioners would come up to me and wish me a “Happy Thanksgiving”. Now I need to pause and talk about the weekly rhythm of the town that anchored the circuit I served–Retford. The town had a market on Thursday and Saturday–had done so since at least the publishing of the Doomsday Book. One of the churches I was assigned to sponsored a reduced price lunch on Thursday. We fed more people than I ever thought possible. And this was done, in part, because there were so many people in the area for whom that meal was the only hot meal of the week.
Now, kind reader, I know what you are thinking. It would be sweet to think that for lunch on the Market Day that just so happened to fall on Thanksgiving day, lunch would be turkey, cornbread dressing–yes cornbread dressing, not some silly stuffing that tastes gross and gives you salmonella poisoning–, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and cranberry jelly. And pumpkin pie for dessert. That would have been real nice.
Didn’t happen.
But just in case, I made plans. I procured all the accouterments required to make a Thanksgiving feast. I ordered a turkey. I went to the grocery store and begged the manager to order cornmeal for me. I even had a family member ship me a can of cranberry jelly. I made green bean casserole, complete with my best can of cream of mushroom soup (best can meaning no dent, thanks Grandma). I even made pie dough from scratch and made pumpkin pie. And I ate it. All by myself.
The English have an analogue to Thanksgiving. They call them harvest festivals. Not fixed on any day but, rather, occurring any time from early September to mid-October, these are local celebrations that have their roots in the culmination of the growing season. There are special worship services, the community gathers for a big meal, and there is a charity auction of produce grown in the area, usually auctioned by a local hero or minor celebrity. And while these were fun occasions in September, by the time we got to the last Thursday in November all my neighbors had filed any sense of thanks-giving away until next September and were full steam into the Christmas Season.
And this felt weird. It was the first time in my life when I was truly de-centered. Assumptions were questioned. What were cultural norms to that point went out the window. It was at that moment that I truly became an expat. And my life has never been the same, since.
For that, I am truly thankful.