Thanksgiving Abroad

This week we celebrated Thanksgiving at our house. I feel confident in saying that we were the only participants in Thanksgiving festivities in our neighborhood, since I am the only American. We’ve done this for a couple of years, and were lucky enough to share Thanksgiving with another American family two years ago. The nature of life abroad is that holidays happen differently. And while for many aspects of living abroad, there are tricks we can use or different ways of seeing things, when it comes to holidays I find that there is no secret way to make an American holiday feel like it would back home.

Back in America, on Thanksgiving Day I would be with my immediate family, eating a ridiculously large meal. Afterwards we would hobble to the couch and watch some Thanksgiving Day football. Probably wearing sweatpants to accept my new rotund shape after Thanksgiving dinner, I would be enjoying a day or two in the holiday routine before heading back to work or school. It’s a privilege to have a place to go for Thanksgiving, and though at the time it can feel like a bit of a hassle to travel at the busiest time of the year, it definitely feels good to be back home for the holidays.

Well, our home is in France now, and it’s not very convenient to fly back to the United States for a few days. So we do a little Thanksgiving meal at our house. This year, my wife cooked a big chicken quite well, substituting lime for lemon in a recipe that I have come to really enjoy. I must have eaten it four or five times this year, and it has always been great. This time was no exception, and it was enjoyable to have something special for the occasion. I also put on Charlie Brown for the children, as I think it’s fun to have a little tradition for the children, and I like Charlie Brown too. But other than those things, we didn’t have much of a Thanksgiving. I went to work, Miriam went to school, and life went on as it would on any other weekday.

Luckily I’m pretty much okay with that, but it definitely is one of the downsides of living abroad. You simply can’t have a full American Thanksgiving experience abroad. If we want to celebrate our own holidays, we have to make our own atmosphere. It’s something that we are working on, as we want our children to experience these things, and to have good memories of holidays like Thanksgiving. We want our children to know the meaning of the holidays that we grew up celebrating, as well as those new ones we celebrate alongside the French.

And while having American holidays abroad is different, there is also a difference in the way that we experience French holidays. We didn’t grow up in France, so we don’t have childhood memories of celebrating important French holidays in a uniquely French way. When I’m off of work for a French holiday, often it’s just a simple day off of work for me. If the holiday is for a war memorial, then I might try and watch something related to the subject to think about the sacrifice or suffering related to the holdiay, but for many other holidays, I can’t have the same connection as someone who grew up here. In my defense, I’m not sure that all French people are fervently celebrating the Catholic holidays, such as Ascension or Assomption, so there may not be much for us to do for some of these.

Living in France has been a wonderful experience for us, as we get to present others with something they don’t usually see, and learn from them at the same time. Unfortunately we can’t simply take all of the good and none of the bad. We don’t get to spend every holidays with our families. My longsuffering wife is especially aware of this, as recent events have made travel back to China difficult for us, and even in the best of times Chinese New Year does not align perfectly with the French school calendar.

We simply do the best we can, and are grateful for those times that we are back in the USA or China with our families, just like days of our childhoods. In the meantime, we try to get into the local French holidays and try new things. We may not have a lot of experience with Bastille Day, but we can celebrate anyway. We can also try some new things at Christmas, mixing what we already love with something new. In the process, perhaps we can share a little Thanksgiving in France.