Thanksgiving

‘Does England have Thanksgiving’

‘No’

‘But you have Christmas though, right?’

For my first ever Thanksgiving holiday I was fortunate to experience it in true American style as I was kindly hosted by the Tripp family in Kentucky. With mountains of food piled up to my eye balls, stepping onto the scales is going to be a painful experience!

Filling the long drive from South Carolina with snapchat videos and karaoke singing, I’m sure Lindsay and I would make a tuneful international duet! With no idea what Thanksgiving was all about, Lindsay ensured that I did all the stereotypical American things including watching ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’ and of course the Macys Thanksgiving parade in New York. Thousands of people prance down 34^th street as part of the parade, children with perfect white teeth, dance around ginormous floats dressed as pretty much anything; santas, elves, munchkins from ‘The Wizard of Oz’, clowns and cartoon characters. Whilst hundreds of adults hold onto giant balloons including; Buzz Lightyear, Ronald McDonald and figures from Sesame Street.  With Gavin DeGraw and songs from ‘The Sound of Music’ blasting through the TV I couldn’t help but sing along, thus receiving a compliment from Mommy Tripp; ‘Alice sounds like she should be on Broadway!’ (Oh I wish!) The parade continued with kids who look way too young for a career in the music industry belting out Christmas songs and waving frantically at the camera whilst Miss America Nina Davuluri ironically passes by standing on top of the Drake’s Cakes float. Who ever heard of Beauty queens and carbs?

But carbs are basically what Thanksgiving is all about. Pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing and green bean casserole dominated the dining room table as we sat down and said our thanks for being so fortunate to enjoy this food. Lindsay and I even attempted some baking ourselves, which was a lot more difficult than we originally anticipated! Anyone who has tasted my little sister’s baking knows she’s a fantastic cook – especially when it comes to Victoria Sponge and Millionaire Shortbread! So with my sister’s recipe to hand, we decided to attempt the Millionaire Shortbread, but we had a few minor issues to overcome…. Firstly, we didn’t have the right ingredients, the Tripp’s had never even heard of Golden Caster Sugar or Golden Syrup so we had to try and find American equivalents! Furthermore, all the measurements were in grams, which completely baffled my American chef. When I asked where the scales were I was just laughed at! It turns out in the States they measure in volume, not weight and so we had to convert everything into ‘cups’. Eventually we sussed out the recipe and the sugar coated shortbread was a success, alongside Lindsay’s infamous home-made cinnamon buns (which were my personal favourites).

This holiday couldn’t have come at a better time. As my first semester at USC draws to an end it allowed me to reflect on the truly amazing opportunity I’ve been given to study abroad. At the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day everyone wrote things down that they were grateful for on small pieces of card, then drew them out from a bowl and guessed who had said what. Apart from Lindsay’s comical brother adding ‘The Queen – God save her’ to the list, it was pretty easy to work out which card was mine. But, instead of giving a long list of all the things I’m thankful for (there’s so much!) I’ll just say how thankful I am to my parents for giving me the chance to see the world from a new perspective. I’m also incredibly thankful for the friends I’ve made State side and, of course, for being invited back to the lovely Tripp household to celebrate my first ever Thanksgiving holiday.