I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and that you're still enjoying the leftovers you probably have from your bountiful feast!
This may not come as a surprise to you, but none of the pilgrims landed in France. Or maybe they did, but they were not met by friendly Native Americans who decided to share their harvest. Either way, sadly there is no official Thanksgiving holiday here. We all have to go to work on the last Thursday of November with little or no ceremony, unless you happen to be around other Americans.
Now, mostly for entertainment and informational purposes, I will share a couple of tidbits about preparing a Thanksgiving dinner in France.
- Whole turkeys don't exist in France in November. Well, they do, but they are still alive. Here's the thing -- the French roast turkeys for Christmas. That is all. If you want to roast a whole turkey at any other time of the year, you need to order it at the butcher's about five days in advance. Last year we learned this the hard way. We went to four boucheries and called a few more before we found a place that had turkeys. When we got there we got to choose between plucked and unplucked. Yikes.
- This won't come as much of a surprise, but some American products just don't exist in France. Sad as it is, the lack of Stove Top Stuffing is somewhat predictable. However, you might not guess that the canned pumpkin you need to make pumpkin pie isn't a French product and can't be found in a typical supermarket.
- Okay, it's not that these products don't exist in France. It's the age of globalization, so of course they exist in France. However, their prices are inflated to gasp-inducing levels. Also, right around Thanksgiving all of the "American" stores are swamped. (At least something feels like home, I guess).
- Apple tartes in France aren't made with cinnamon, so if you aren't making your own, it's not going to taste like it should for Thanksgiving.
- Just about everything here is smaller. I have a beautiful roaster pan that we received for our wedding. It does not fit in our oven. The turkey went in something else.
Those are just some fun, "Oh France" moments. If you want to read about some others, this article is pretty entertaining.
In addition to these logistical hurdles, it's a bit strange to be in a foreign country on what is a major holiday to you, but is just another day to everyone else. I had to keep reminding myself it was a special day, and I tried to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone I saw who would be interested. It was a little sad when I thought of how my family was gathering together and my friends were all back in my hometown getting together. It's tough to realize that life goes on without you sometimes. Ah well.
But life goes on here too, and we had an excellent holiday in Paris. On the evening of Thanksgiving, a couple of my coworkers (an American-English marriage) invited everyone from our office over for a potluck Thanksgiving dinner. There were only about five Americans present, but it was just lovely. Everyone brought some sort of homemade dish that's special where they come from (or something they were confident cooking) and there was plenty of wine and beer to go around.
While the potluck dinner was delicious, this wasn't what made it special for me. Last year, after having only been in France for about two months, Thanksgiving was tough. We cheated a bit and went to Ireland to celebrate a lovely weekend with some close friends. But we also tried to celebrate in France, trying to embrace our new home and our life here. What really happened was we spent Thanksgiving with a group of people who weren't quite a group of friends. But this year, after a season of working with this special mix of people, it felt really great to have friends with whom we could celebrate the holiday. It's wonderful to have one of those "ah ha!" moments when you realize that you're part of something, that you have a community. It's especially great when it makes a holiday feel the way it's supposed to feel. It was clear to me on Thursday night that we have a lot to be thankful for.
After our great big Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, Paul and I hosted a smaller dinner with a few of our friends on Saturday. (Since a lot of Americans seem to do their big turkeys on this Saturday, I decided to refer to it as Frenchsgiving). This also was pretty great. We weren't meeting people at this dinner like we were the year before. We were with our friends. And for this occasion, it wasn't just me, Paul, and people he's known forever. It was a mix of old friends and new, and it was a dinner that would make my parents proud. The food was delicious and we set the table for a holiday -- we used our china and crystal for the second time ever. With the food, the friends, and the little bit of ceremony and tradition, it felt like a real Thanksgiving.
When I think about it, I have a lot to be thankful for this year. When we arrived, Paul had a lot of good friends and family who were very kind to me. Today I feel like they're also my friends and family, and they're not just Paul's friends being nice to me. I'm also really happy to have met some really wonderful new friends of my own in Paris. Then when I think about the amazing friends and family we have in the US, I realize how incredibly blessed we are.
So, I hope you all enjoyed your holiday as much as I did. I can't wait to celebrate the next one, Christmas, with my friends and family back (in my other) home.
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