Afterhood

Three generations. Seven families. One day of Thanks.

I missed this day, the actual Thursday of Thanksgiving, during the twelve years we lived in London. Oh, we celebrated Thanksgiving sure enough. On Sunday afternoon, on the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Unimaginable, right? In America of course Thanksgiving Thursday is a holiday. A sacrosanct day off from work and school both. Increasingly, so is the Wednesday before and the Friday after, creating a possible five day mini-holiday. Christmas without the presents, some friends say.

The traditional long weekend of Thanksgiving in America certainly creates an island of time to relax, to overeat perhaps, but also to linger in the kitchen, around the table, over the pie crusts, with friends and family. To gather with many generations, for a tradition of people as well as food.

Pretty obvious, but consider: in the UK Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday. What does that mean, to an American family living in London? The children are in school that Thursday, the adults are at work, and relatives and friends are probably far away. Some American families still celebrate on Thursday, cooking the traditional meal, or a version thereof, for a late weekday dinner. There is no loitering pre-meal and pre-game in the kitchen, living room or den of course. Perhaps the cooking is rushed, and it makes for a late night at the dinner table for school age children.

I have always loved the build up to Thanksgiving, the preparatory shopping, the anticipation of menu planning. So I opted for a Thanksgiving Sunday lunch, when the family could be home in the house, inhaling eau de turkey, and scraping the mashed potato bowl as I cooked.

Sunday lunch is an established tradition in the UK. Families and friends often gather for a roast, a leisurely meal, a post-prandial walk in the park. So Thanksgiving fits nicely into this construct, if shorn of its pairing with major travel, extended family and American football.

It was always a challenge shopping for an American Thanksgiving in London. The Brits are great on turkey. In fact turkey often forms the centerpiece of the traditional Christmas menu in the UK. Remember Bob Cratchit and Mr. Scrooge? And there is always a plenitude of potatoes. But sweet potatoes? Pumpkin pie filling? Cranberry sauce? Especially in 1996, the year that we arrived in London.

Strange to think that these staples of our Thanksgiving menu should be considered imported foods in the UK. In the early days I would make my way to Partridge’s, in the King’s Road (note ‘in’ the King’s Road vs. on the road. British usage…) and pay a fortune for Libby’s canned pumpkin, Ocean Spray Cranberry sauce, Nestle’s Chocolate Chips, and whatever else my homesick heart craved. Over the years, with the growth of the American expat community in London, and the increased familiarity with the American Thanksgiving tradition, many of these foodstuffs, or their British equivalent, became more readily (and inexpensively) available. (Should I mention the time – perhaps not – when I bought the kids a box of Lucky Charms at Partridge’s? And My Husband saw the price in pounds, converted it, and cried, “Are we really eating seven dollar cereal?! Seven dollar cereal?!”)

I ordered my annual Thanksgiving turkey from Lidgate the Butcher on Holland Park Avenue, W11. The men and women behind the glass counters in Lidgate’s still wear white butcher’s aprons over green striped shirts, and straw boaters with a green ribbon band. I always purchased a Kelly Bronze Turkey- an old fashioned American bird breed in fact – from Mr. Lidgate. When you ordered from the shop (note shop – not store – in the UK) they would give you a number for your order, the number of the page within the number of the order book in which they wrote your order. Pity those who arrived to stand in line in the shop for their holiday order without their order number. Christmas time (turkey season and a British national holiday remember) was much worse, and the line for pick-ups and new orders at Lidgate’s snaked out the front door, down the sidewalk and around the corner – on Christmas Eve, and even on Christmas Eve Eve. Dickensian indeed.

We shared Thanksgiving with my sister and her family in London, and it turned out that I – a mere sister in the extended family at home – was old enough to cook the Thanksgiving meal.  When we began celebrating together in 1996 the children – all the cousins – were small, and our dining room easily encompassed all of them. As the years passed and the children grew to youths, and then to young adults, the capacity of the dining room was strained, and we sat shoulder to shoulder, barely fitting, in a cramped but cozy solidarity. I remember looking around that table, wondering what had happened to those cherub cheeked children. Had it only been a few years?

Over the years in London we also adopted quite a few friends and lonely Americans for the Thanksgiving meal. The children’s American friends from boarding school for instance, or graduate students studying at Oxford or Cambridge, too far from home to travel back for what was considered a regular weekend. They were thrilled to be in a home, seated at a crowded table, digging into a plate of ‘foreign’ i.e. American food. A plateful of turkey and the trimmings, a plate of pecan or pumpkin pie, a taste of home. Of course, we often adopt friends and neighbors and travelers and stray students for the Thanksgiving meal at ‘home’ in the US. But Thanksgiving overseas, well, perhaps you do feel another level of rescue and national identity is offered.

Now we are back ‘home’ in the US, and spending Thanksgiving at Grandmommy’s, with three generations, and seven families, for one day of Thanks. Thanks Given.