2 December 2002

Thanksgiving in France

For six hours last Saturday our friends in France helped us create our own Thanksgiving holiday.  It wasn’t held on Thanksgiving Day and the language wasn’t English most of the time, but nonetheless it felt like the family holidays we’ve had for the past 21 years of our marriage.

The night before, Julia, my American neighbor down the street and I talked on the phone about all of the details from coffee to the game I designed.  The next morning I arrived at her house in the car loaded down with chairs, a coffee pot, two pumpkin pies, a sweet potato pie, extra coffee cups, fall decorations, and plastic containers for leftovers.

After everyone arrived we made the perfect gravy (no lumps) and the two little puny turkeys got carved.  Actually the turkeys came from the local butcher downtown that morning and were the size of two large American chickens. 

One of our French neighbors made the comment that we Americans seem to eat huge “mutant” turkeys, and we keep them in a freezer, which he thought was really strange. 

When the French wine was poured, I tapped on my wine glass (which was filled with water).  Everyone grew quiet.  The adults shared what they were thankful for.  Most of us said we were thankful for our families. 

Julia cried as she said how much she loved feeling her life now that she had slowed down from the pace of America.  David had been translating into French and he made a joke about having to cry to translate for Julia.  When David starts to translate into French he throws his hands around and gets so excited that it’s like he is someone else when he is speaking English.  I guess speaking French brings something out in him.

He said that as a kid in Alabama, Thanksgiving had been his favorite holiday and since coming to France 12 years ago he had really missed it.  His family used to get together with his relatives around a big table like the one we were sitting around. 

Bernard, our French neighbor spoke in French to thank everyone for inviting him.  Monique, Bernard's partner said she had not heard of Thanksgiving before but she felt the French should have something similar.  Jay made a smart remark that the French don't have enough holidays so another one would be good.

Everyone waited patiently for the translations.  After each toast we said, “Here, here.” 

We ate familiar food like mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, and sweet potatoes.  For dessert we had my pies and strong French coffee.

Everyone talked non-stop.  After about an hour we moved to the living room and played a homemade version of “Pictionary”. The words were written in French (English underneath each word) so that either language described the picture to be created.  I was a little worried that I didn’t have the right translations, but the French folks did fine, and the English-speaking folks understood too.

The kids and adults formed teams and one side played for blood.  I called them the corporate team.  Our side I called the hippies because we didn't care about the rules or the winning.  We just wanted to play.

The whole event would have lasted longer but the smallest kids were so tired from all of the excitement that they were walking around like zombies.  As the leftovers were divided into the containers for everyone to take home we began thinking about Christmas. 

It was funny, in a way because Julia and I were thinking more about the fact that the French people who joined us were making friends with each other for the first time than the fact that it was Thanksgiving and some of us might be a little bit homesick.  That struck us as odd, but a good thing.

Our next big hurdle is the trucker strike.  We went to the grocery store the next morning to stock up on food before the truckers block the deliveries to the stores.  It's just another day in a small town in France.