Thanksgiving in the United Kingdom

Hello everyone, one day later! Today we are speaking about Aberystwyth again... *applause*. I can feel your excitement, your happy faces and your screams of adrenaline from here. Well, today I opened my photo album of "Eramsus Aber" and I went to some from Thanksgiving, which is known worldwide, and I felt an unignorable urge to remember this dinner with my flatmates writing this entry. Let's go!

Thanksgiving is celebrated in the United States and Canada, so I had never celebrated this holiday before, of course. In my residence, there was a girl from the United States and a few days before Thanksgiving she was excited. It is one of her favourite days of the year: meeting up with her family and friends to enjoy a huge meal. During Erasmus, she was very far away from her close ones, but she decided to celebrate it anyway.

Erin spent alllll dayyyy (and I think some of the day before) in the kitchen to teach to us 9 girls in the hall about what makes a Thanksgiving. It's really focused on preparing food. One of the most famous dishes from this holiday is the stuffed turkey. Erin wasn't too pleased with the turkey she bought. She went to the supermarket and she thought that she would find a turkey which was in good condition, big, fat and with enough space inside to stuff it. But it wasn't like this, they told her that to find a similar-sized turkey she had to reserve or order it in advance. So she didn't have any other option than to buy a turkey which was supposedly small. Here is a photo of the poor turkey, I think it is quite big, honestly, I can't imagine what a "real" one would be like that would please Erin. I still remember when I was younger and I watched Disney films, where Minnie, Mickey and Donald Duck where excited for this day and they went on adventures to find a good turkey. If any person had told me that some day I would have been having one of these dinners, I wouldn't have believed it, but I had the great opportunity of having someone from the USA in my halls. This tradition crossed the pond for free.

But let's be serious, who would think that this is small?

But the dinner doesn't end here, they had a lot more dishes. We had a flatmate who was vegetarian, so Erin had to make a Vegetarian thanksgiving, surely the first time in her whole like that something like that had happened. What she made was several delicious dishes for everyone: she cooked vegetables and she put a kind of cheese or sauce or something on top, it was so good. I think that they were sprouts, if I'm not mistaken. She also prepared the mythical stuffed eggs. I'm saying mythical because in my house they are a tasty dish in the summer. In the end, everything is universal. She also made mashed potatoes to go with the turkey and the stuffing and finally, she decided to cook some bread. When you are on Erasmus, bread is basically non-existent. Obviously they sell bread of the day, but nobody stops to buy it because nobody is going to eat an entire stick. So Erin decided to cook some bread. She said if I do it, I do it properly. And this is what it was, the turkey with its sweet filling was delicious, accompanied with mashed potatoes, sprouts, bread and the eggs from the first course. We all took a bit of everything and we did that several times. Sometimes it feels good to eat something different from pasta with tomato sauce or pre-cooked pizza (typical menu of students, whether Erasmus or not). We always used to organise dinners and we enjoyed it.

Erin cutting the turkey. It wasn't a simple task. Here you can see the sprouts as well. They are sprouts, right? But baby ones.

Honestly, Erin did a huge amount of work. I remember than when the turkey was in the oven, sparks started flying. Or the bread, I can't remember now. Erin had put baking paper and it had burned, which started a fire, but she put it out quickly. Efficient. Not even the fire alarm went off and what left us in a panic, now we remember it as a funny anecdote.

During the dinner, Erin gave us a little chat about history. Why they celebrate Thanksgiving and why she likes it so much. She told us that in the United States it is almost as important as Christmas, or even more important in some areas. All the shops are shut and everyone is happy on this day. Everyone likes to meet up with their family and enjoy a huge dinner. Also, celebrating Thanksgiving just means one thing: just one week until the famous "BLACK FRIDAY". Black Friday is where all the shops and establishments have really big reductions and the sales skyrocket. Everyone is shopping, the shops are in chaos, there are never-ending queues, but it is an anticipated day for everyone. It is a day that everyone benefits from: the shops and the shoppers. And in the same way, I think that in Spain we already do something similar, right? And if not, a lot of European countries have already copied this idea. People take advantage of it to do their Christmas shopping. No wonder they are always ahead. In Aber, it was Halloween and the Christmas decorations had basically already been put up. I don't like that. Each thing at its own time. Consumerism consumes everything.

Well, in conclusion, once more the experience taught us about other cultures. It teaches us to keep a more open mind and offers a greater experience to add to our palette. Knowing about the celebrations, food and traditions of other cultures first hand is something that a lot of people would pay to be able to experience. How beautiful it is to have (and even more so to KNOW) a great variety of culture, in every sense. Our own Thanksgiving dinner like that, so unexpected, I never could have imagined it. Erasmus has hundreds of good things about it (independence, improving your language, improving your job prospects, etc) but the best ones are these ones. These small experiences that happen without planning, you don't expect them. A while after, you will remember them, and you will feel fortunate for simply having had celebrated a Thanksgiving with your flatmates, laughing and chatting around the table. The truth is that I went to sleep really soon after, but they kept partying, drinking wine and laughing. That night I was thinking, and as there are lots of festivals that originate from the United States that have made their way to our continent, and I wondered: how long until Spain will celebrate thanksgiving? . Also, here we look for any excuse to celebrate something, as you know. Give it time.

I hope that you have enjoyed this and that I've made your mouth water with the photos. Quite the spread. Small turkey filled with sweet sauce. And that will be everything for today's post! What festivals do you know that aren't celebrated in Spain? Comment, share and give it a like. And as you already know, I'll see you tomorrow, like always.

Photo gallery