Thanksgiving in Australia: Building a New Tradition

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This is the 2nd Thanksgiving holiday spent abroad for us since we relocated to Australia. For my money Thanksgiving is the best holiday of the year. It's not about buying presents or a religious holiday but rather it's about spending time with loved ones and giving thanks for the blessings we've received over the last year. Like many Americans I have very fond memories of Thanksgivings past. The challenge now is how do I pass on the traditions of this holiday that I love so much to my kids in this new country where it's not celebrated and and finding collard greens, pigs feet and chitlins (or chitterlings for the unacquainted) is next to impossible?

Next to being with family, the key symbol Thanksgiving is all about the food! This poses a particularly difficult challenge for a Black American as some of the traditional foods we eat just simply don't exist here or you'd have to make from scratch (sorry but even pre-cleaned chitlins are best cooked at someone else's house!). In addition to those mentioned above, I have yet to see a rutabaga in the produce section or a sweet potato pie or my mama's homemade apple cobbler in the bakery section of the supermarket. It's hard enough just finding some Jiffy cornbread mix! So with this knowledge in mind the wifey and I set out to build the start of our new Aussie style Thanksgiving tradition with the ingredients on offer offer here.

Key Ingredients:
Family - a free cooked meal is usually enough to motivate the crew (check)
Friends Who Couldn't Make it Home - typically made up of other American expats tired of trying to explain to Aussies why Thanksgiving is so much fun (check)
Thanksgiving Virgins - comprised of non-Americans who've heard of this "Thanksgiving" thing but really just think they're coming to dinner (check)
Turkey - 11 lbs is about the biggest you can buy in the store (we called that "the leg" in my house growing up) so we had to buy a little extra (check)
A Blessing - the blessing before Thanksgiving dinner is CRITICAL! It's a day for giving thanks folks so don't skimp on the grace just to dig into the food! (check)
Cranberry sauce - My mama always says the Thanksgiving meal isn't complete without some cranberry sauce! (check)

These are the essentials. Anything not on this list can be substituted for, eliminated, or talked about incessantly to the Aussie family and Virgins to reinforce how great this holiday really is. I think we pulled it off. The food was great, the company was better and we're already taking bookings for next year from gobsmacked (yep, just picked that term up) Virgins. All this plus we were spared the torture of watching the Detroit Lions.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Expats around the world! May the Thanksgiving tradition continue to thrive in your adopted home as it does in ours. I'd love to hear your Thanksgiving stories as well.

Black2Oz out.