In 1621 the first harvest celebration in the form of
a huge feast took place in the USA between the British colonists and the
Wampanoag Indians. In 1863, during the civil war, President Lincoln declared
the last Thursday of every November the official Thanksgiving Day… And so on
November 28th 2013 I celebrated my first Thanksgiving in Dallas,
Texas with the McAlister family.
My week started with a 7am trip to Dallas in a car
my French friends had rented and so aptly named the ‘gay mobile’. The gay
mobile was a small, bright green car which made a little ‘toot toot’ sound
every time the lock button was pressed and to be driven all around Texas by
three French boys. Needless to say they were less than impressed when this was
the car they were given at the rental shop as the larger one they booked had
gone.
Nevertheless I arrived in Dallas around 10.30am to
be greeted warmly by the McAlister family who I hadn’t seen since my 18th
birthday! My week was filled with family fun at a beautiful outdoor park, an
Ice sculpture show, the Dallas reunion tower and finally Thanksgiving dinner accompanied
by a traditional game of American Football.
On Thanksgiving morning we all sat down and watched
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the TV… This parade lines the streets of New
York every year and is aired nationally for all to experience the elaborate floats,
Broadway street performances and music stars singing their current hits. The
whole parade was started by Macy’s (the department store) and grows every year
with new floats. After that we made little turkey place cards, I got to make my
own which didn’t turn out as horrible as expected considering my crafting
abilities. We then said grace led by Sue, the wonderful host of the week,
during which she spoke of what she was thankful for…
Having the whole week to internally reflect on what
I may be truly thankful for (even the Facebook status bar read ‘what are you
thankful for?’) I came up with many people, experiences and things I have to be
thankful for and in a nutshell I decided that aside from my health and the health
of my loved ones this year I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to be
studying abroad, experiencing places and culture I may not have had I not been
here, and my family and friends at home and here who have supported me the
whole way and made it possible. I am thankful for all the people from different
countries who are now such a huge part of my life and I am so so thankful for
the opportunity to spend a traditional Thanksgiving day with such a lovely,
warm American Family!
Next was the food, oh the food! I’ve decided that
Americans are very lucky in the respect that they get Christmas dinner twice a
year! I feel like this is something us British should look into… We helped ourselves
to turkey, ham, stuffing, vegetables, American gravy (which is a different
colour to ours), bread, pickles, olives and I even had seconds. Desert was
equally as plentiful as I tried my first rocky road ice cream, raspberry jello desert
and pumpkin pie.
When we were all far too full to move we sat down to
watch an NFL game between the Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders. Although I
got the gist of the game I realised watching it with true fans I still had a
lot to learn!
All in all I learnt a lot about the tradition of
Thanksgiving and learnt that Christmas celebrations such as the tree, songs,
lights etc don’t really kick off until Thanksgiving is over, one holiday at a
time people! I had a fantastic time with fantastic people and I will never
forget it, thank you McAlister family
No comments:
Post a Comment