For the first thirteen years of my life, I grew up in the US. We celebrated Thanksgiving every year with a few other Korean families we were close with. The parents would get drunk and the kids would play board games until the wee hours of the morning. And the turkey was always excellent. It was so much fun.
Then, we moved to Korea. There was really no point in celebrating Thanksgiving without other people to celebrate it with. So 11 Thanksgiving-less years.
I moved back to the US in 2006 to do my MA at UChicago, and ended up spending two Thanksgivings there. I don’t really remember what I did my first Thanksgiving. Ah, actually, now I do. I went to P.F. Chang’s with a friend of mine. :dubious:
The second Thanksgiving, my roommate and I decided to do a turkey and have people over. That was fun. I cooked my first turkey and it was a brilliant success. I had a friend visiting from DC and some other friends who couldn’t be bothered to fly home, so we had a cozy night together. But we had enough turkey leftovers to feed half of Chicago. It made an excellent soup.
I came back to Korean in 2008. Until recently I worked for an English academy that hosted a Thanksgiving lunch for their teachers, so I got a good dose of turkey and stuffing, but it really wasn’t the same - too many people stuffed into a classroom, trying to eat as much as possible before going to prep for class.
This year a friend of mine invited us over for a turkey dinner. The food was really good but I didn’t know most of the people at the party. We had to waddle out early anyway because of another engagement that evening.
I would host a turkey dinner myself if it weren’t for the fact that turkeys are so freakin’ hard to come by. We have a proper oven and everything; it’s such a shame. And whenever we move out of Korea we’ll probably be going to the UK, so it looks like no more proper Thanksgivings for me.
I don’t think I ever did anything for Thanksgiving during my 8 years in Japan. That never really bothered me that much… Christmas kind of sucked, though.
I’ve never understood how could anyone dis Thanksgiving anyway. It’s the perfect holiday. You stuff yourself silly and don’t have to buy anyone a present. What’s not to love?
Gleena, my sister lived in Australia for many years. Like me, she is Canadian. While she gave up on the idea of Canadian Thanksgiving (in October), she would not give up on Christmas. So, unlike her neighbours, who would be hosting friends on the patio and barbecuing on Christmas Day, she would be working to cook the turkey, the veg, the potatoes, and so on; and serving it to her family. As she said, it was difficult to do when the temps were 35C, but she wasn’t about to give up what she knew as a Canadian Christmas dinner–as she said, steaks and sausages grilled on the barbecue, and salads served on the patio just weren’t the same.
My ex-wife was American, and we celebrated American Thanksgiving every year–neither of us had the day off, but we’d cook a typical American Thanksgiving dinner (well, there was only two of us, so a big turkey was out of the question, so we’d make do with a nice ham). Still, we had many things she remembered from her days in the US, and plenty of TV football (she was an NFL fan). Good times, and I certainly appreciated two Thanksgivings a year!
It was the heat that utterly broke me of any idea that I was cooking like that on Christmas. And I actually enjoy summer Chrissies now, oddly. Plus my birthday is also in summer now!
The first Christmas I was here I was determined to cook a traditional English dinner, but when I discovered I had dripped sweat on most of the salad, I swore it was my last year doing it. It was humid, overcast, hazy and 40 degrees C outside.
I enjoy my barbeque, cold meats and cold salads now very much!
Each to their own. My sister and her family now live two hours north of me, and she can have her traditional Christmas dinner, to which I am invited. Snow usually covers the yard, and subzero (Celsius) temps are normal. Her kids enjoy the Christmas break from school, and spend it sledding, and throwing snowballs, and making snowmen, and so on.
Now, if my Australian brother-in-law would just stop trying to barbecue steaks and sausages on the back deck while wearing a T-shirt the day after Christmas, because that’s how they do it in Australia… Well, maybe he shouldn’t stop, but he should realize that sometimes, the weather is going to say that a T-shirt is not the wisest choice for something to wear when grilling on the back deck.
Interestingly, when my sister moved to Australia, she took the garden thermometer she had put on the side of the house when she lived here. She put it on the fence surrounding the patio of her Australian house. Her Australian neighbours were amazed at it–they had never seen a garden thermometer that went down to -40C before!
I’m in Australia, too, and yes, much too hot in the wet season for traditional cooking. I toy with the idea of cooking a big meal in the dry season-- doesn’t have to be turkey, rib roast or ham are good holiday meals for me-- but Australia lacks winter holidays. Plus I’m lazy.
I was in the US for Thanksgiving this year and got my holiday cooking fix.
I recently hosted Thanksgiving dinner for 34 and did all the cooking myself in Jakarta, so obviously I don’t think it is too hot to cook here in the tropics.
My guests were about half American; Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Morocco, Bangladesh, India and probably one or two other countries were represented as well.
We had our meal on a Saturday since no one gets Thursday off from work. It’s become a tradition for us to host a super-early Thanksgiving (we did it on the 19th), thus leaving other days closer to or on the actual Thanksgiving open so that people can celebrate more than once.
I think it’s strange that your friends don’t want to come over and enjoy traditional food from another culture. Everyone I know loves to do that - including me! I was recently invited to a Diwali celebration and spent days salivating at the prospect of eating authentic Indian food at someone’s house.
It’s not that they don’t, it’s that they don’t year after year after year, since they aren’t really that keen on a lot of very traditional Thanksgiving food. Candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce things like that. Couple are not keen on turkey, it’s not a really common food here. They eat it and make polite noises, but they aren’t keen. My husband, in particular, isn’t fond of any of that.
I’ve been here nine years now, and I did Thanksgiving for the first seven or so. All of my friends were keen to enjoy traditional food the first few years, but it just turned into a giant pissup (drinking sessions) where half the people didn’t like most of it. Given that it’s not their tradition, and they were there to make me happy, and it wasn’t making me happy because all they know about Thanksgiving they learned from me and American TV, I stopped doing it.
Although in their defense, the very first year we made Turkeys by tracing our hands on paper like you do in kindergarten, and did crafts. That was fun.
Even when I lived in the US I didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving or Christmas very often. After leaving university and getting a real job in 1985 I’ve probably had Thanksgiving diner 6 times and xmas maybe 3.
