A Thanksgiving wrap-up

I read a great article earlier this week that said one in six Brits celebrate Thanksgiving now. I think that’s so wonderful. I absolutely love Thanksgiving – all the delicious comfort food, spending time with friends and family – and no pressure of buying gifts.

Unfortunately, it seems that one of the best American traditions has come to the UK at the cost of one of the worst American traditions (Black Friday) also arriving.

I was so sad to see the footage from shops across the country on Friday with mobs of people fighting over cheap (and not even very good) flat-screen TVs. No telly is worth trampling another human being for.

Even when I lived in America, I avoided going out in public on Black Friday – or the whole weekend in general – my parents and I always went to get the Christmas tree – on the Saturday morning, but it was always early and in the mountains, so there weren’t masses of people.

I try the Black Friday experience though – once when my high school best friend insisted we do our Christmas shopping together. I hated it then and I swore I’d never do it again.

Anyway, happier things:

My Thanksgiving festivities began on Wednesday when I made a pumpkin pie for Daddy-man to take into work. It has been a tradition for us both to take pies in for our co-workers on Thanksgiving day – but since I work from home now, my colleagues miss out.

On Thursday, we celebrated ‘real’ Thanksgiving with dinner out. We went to The Diner, which is in the Seven Dials area of London (although their website says Covent Garden – I suppose the two might be the same, but I was baby-wearing and it seemed like a LONG way from Covent Garden).

Dinner was fab, though. It’s an American-style diner, with a bit of an upmarket twist. The food was delicious, the portions were substantial and the bill was surprising low – especially for Central London.

I had fried turkey pieces with a spicy sauce and sweet potato fries.

Daddy-man enjoyed a turkey leg, ‘wet fries’ and mac and cheese (which I helped him finish).

Pumpkin had a very non-Thanksgiving-ey toast and scrambled eggs, as well as a few of my fries. Then, we waddled back to the train station, feeling very full.

Then, yesterday, we had our annual ‘Britsgiving’ party.
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Since neither Daddy-man nor I are fans of roast turkey, I always try to think of some creative way to have our Thanksgiving dinner. This year, we went for Thanksgiving poutine.

Poutine is actually a Canadian food – chips, gravy and cheese curds. My version just included a few more toppings – candied sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce and fried onions.

After some online research, Hubby found a work-around for the lack of cheese curds to be found in the UK. A mix of cheddar, Gruyere and mozzarella. It was delicious.

As if all that food wasn’t enough, there was also the annual Tower of Pie!

I started doing this years ago because I couldn’t decide on a single type of pie to make – and having more than one slice always seemed a bit greedy.

Anyway, the selection is always the same, although I’ve amended the recipes over the years: pumpkin, pecan, chocolate cream, coconut cream, lemon cream and apple.

Along with the vast quantities of food, we usually play a few games too – and since Pumpkin fell asleep only a few rounds into Cards Against Humanity, I got to join in. There were some real crackers that we came up with – but none of them suitable for posting here. If you’ve never played, and don’t mind some very adult humour, I highly recommend it!

Once everyone had gone home, we made only the slightest attempt to clean up – just doing the essentials before going to bed. I was very grateful today for my dishwasher and had leftover pie for breakfast… and lunch. I’m not sorry.

Also, now that Thanksgiving is over, I’m happy to join the rest of the country in acknowledging that Christmas is on the way. Starting by dressing my baby in a Christmas pudding onesie.