Happy Thanksgiving!

For each of the last 4 years, I have organized a Thanksgiving Dinner here in my adopted home town for all the 'waifs & strays' among my American friends - those without a family here to spend their great national holiday with.

This year, alas, I find myself on an out-of-town trip. And, although there will doubtless be Thanksgiving celebrations aplenty going on in 'the other place' which I am visiting, I'm afraid I don't number any Americans amongst my friends down there, so.... Thanksgiving will not be happening for me this year.

I am very disappointed by this. I have, over the past 15 years or so, come to enjoy this holiday far more than Christmas. It seems - at least for those of us lucky enough to be able to enjoy it as 'outsiders' - to encompass all the best bits of the December festivities (gatherings of friends and family, feeling inordinately jolly and well-disposed towards the world in general, eating and drinking far too much), while excluding most of the worst bits (expensive gift-giving, the pressure of having to spend time with family members you don't particularly like, the entire country coming to a standstill for the best part of 10 days). And it adds in some unique little extras of its own - pumpkins (not a big fan of pumpkin pie... but pumpkin soup - yaaayy!), the big football game on TV.

I think it probably helps also that I have no childhood experience of Thanksgiving - whereas Christmas is inextricably linked with countless old yet vivid memories, some painfully nostalgic (far-off sledging escapades - "Ah, Rosebud..."), others just painful (family rows, disappointing presents, early romantic disasters). My first Thanksgiving party was at Oxford in the early '90s (I've always had a lot of American friends; and many of my contemporaries or near-contemporaries at University emigrated to the States in pursuit of love or a better career: I now have far more of a social life around Washington, DC than I do in London), and there have been several others since, a couple of them actually in America; and always, essentially, these were gatherings of friends rather than family (and hence, matters of choice rather than duty). Well, not my family, anyway. Being able to watch other people's family bickering from the safety of the sidelines (just occasionally throwing down a flag when things get too rough) is so much more entertaining than being caught up in your own!

I shall miss the big day this year.... will have to try to celebrate twice as extravagantly next year.

Anyway, I would like to wish a very Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers - especially the American ones, to whom the greeting might actually mean something.