I usually read my e-mail before my blog, which can sometimes influence what I might write about here. I was asked in one e-mail I read this morning if we celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. The answer is, kind of, if turkey tetrazzini and apple crisp counts as an all American meal. We did all take the time to say something that we were particularly thankful for, before sharing our supper last night.
I moved to France in 1991, and I think for the first couple of years I made an effort to celebrate Thanksgiving à la American. We were living south of Paris, my husband was working for an American company filled with ex-pats and we would all get together for this holiday. Then in 1994, we moved south, near Cannes, my husband went to work for a French company and so did I. We didn't have many American friends in the area, we both worked 40+ hours a week, including that third thursday in November which is not a holiday in the rest of the world. This is when my celebrating Thanksgiving officially fizzled into a tetrazzini kind of thing. Some years we would have a turkey dinner with another franco-american couple on the saturday following the American holiday. Some years , not.
Four years ago, we moved to a small town in provence. In our search for a house, I left a message on this town's website, about what a franco-american couple (us) was looking for as far as size and price range. I got an answer back from a man apologizing that he couldn't help us in our house hunt, but that he did have an American wife that I could e-mail if I wanted to. Cool, I thought, a small french town with an American already living there. We eventually found a house and moved here, a move that was influenced by the presence of my mother-in-law being nearby and also the potential of an American friend. That first Thanksgiving that we lived in small town provence, we celebrated with this fellow American and her family, as we have ever since. Only, we have to celebrate on saturday, everyone works or has school on thursday.
So just when I am getting back into the groove of celebrating this all-American holiday, it looks as if I'll be missing this year's meal. We are invited to a surprise lunch for one of my husband's friends and will be missing the big saturday feast. Maybe we can make it back in time for dessert. Now that's an idea...
Friday, November 24, 2006
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8 comments:
I also don't do much Thanksgiving celebrating. Something to do with being far from my family and in the middle of a tropical summer...
Turkey tetrazzini sounds yummy. Hope you made it back for that dessert - what was it?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Blog-hopping, I found your Thanksgiving post. A holiday list of expatriates celebrating Thanksgiving Day is calling...I'm loving this Vicar-ious story pooling!
Gooble! Gooble!
Meilleurs voeux!
Happy Thanksgiving! We didn't celebrate the year we were in France either--something about no other Americans around, no one home before about 5:30, etc. And that was fine. But we celebrated with other Americans this year.
Anyway, the point is to be thankful, not to eat tarte au potiron, right? And do you know the French for cranberry? I was trying to explain it to my class, and failed.
Sounds like you always have a lovely Thanksgiving, no matter what's served!
We kept the celebration going for a few years, too, but it eventually kind of disappeared. In Andorra we had our golf groups annual 'End of Year Gala' on 'American Thanksgiving' with expat's of many nationalities, which was a wonderful way to celebrate. Unfortunately, we missed it this year (car issues) ...but turkey tonight!
After six years I am still making a turkey dinner in France but then I don't have small children at home. We usually have American friends over to share. This year I went back to the States for the holiday and made the dinner at the home of one of my children. It is such an American holiday.
Nice blog.
http://z6.invisionfree.com/denominations
(please feel free to register and participate anytime. You are most welcome).
i, too, did not make a t-day dinner. i tried last year and it was a big pain just coming up with the ingredients. this year, we had pizza. yup, my husband was thankful for pizza. he doesn't care anyway as he's canadian and their t-day is in october. i didn't make a big dinner then either as i was hugely pregnant.
edj- in quebecois french, cranberry is canneberge. in french french i've just seen it as cranberry. when i tried to use canneberge here no one knows what i'm talking about.
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