Giving Thanks for Rock

In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving I'd resigned myself that we would not have a celebration. We'd tried to honor a few American holidays (most notably Halloween and July 4th in the last year) but I'd kind of come to the conclusion that it is more depressing to have a weak celebration than none at all. Plus I'm going through a phase in my immigration where I'm really trying to "go with the change" rather than hold on to the past. I'm making an effort to celebrate what I'm learning rather than think about what I'm missing.

I don't talk about my negative impressions of London with any kind of frankness except with Marty. I don't write about my negative immigration experiences on this blog because I don't want to distance myself from Londoners (whatever their nationalities) who love it here and I don't want Americans at home to think I'm whiny and don't appreciate the opportunity to live abroad. I've written countless blogs about stuff I've wanted to express to my friends who I never see, but have erased them because I'm unsure how people I care about will react to them. But I will say in defense of some of my negative feelings that I think it is easy to love a place for its differences when your time there has an expiration date, but harder to accept that you could be there forever and fear that you will lose the traditions that you could never know how much you would miss until there was a risk of never celebrating them again.

So by the end of last Thursday I'd read my friends' "I can't wait for the food and family!" Facebook status updates, realized that it had snowed back home, and been asked one too many times by my English co-workers to explain Thanksgiving to ignore it. Despite my plans for a greater assimilation undertaking , I was officially craving deviled eggs and baked yams topped with marshmallows and brown sugar. If I didn't try to have five kinds of pie that day, I knew I would regret it.

We found out The Hard Rock Cafe was serving a special Thanksgiving dinner "set menu" as they call it over here. It promised "Turkey dinner with all the trimmings." This is what we got:



A traditional dinner, it ain't. In fact it was the worst Thanksgiving dinner ever since everything was frozen or dehydrated at one point. The stuffing was British stuffing, which is actually mostly made of meat (what? ew.). I won't even mention what they tried to pass off as pumpkin pie. But at least it was way overpriced.


Also it was only one helping, which is not very Thanksgiving at all as the American readers will know. So we got the jumbo appetizer plate off of the usual Hard Rock menu before the pathetic attempt at an American dinner. The jumbo plate had an array of typical American chain restaurant starters. That part actually was delicious and comforting.

Since I was expecting no celebration at all, I was halfway satiated with our attempts at ritual. And now it seems as if the holiday season has started, even if it isn't really winter weather here. Anyway, we had fun with it because what are you gonna do... Sit around and cry? That wouldn't honor our forefather's sacrifices, would it? They were immigrants making a new life too, after all.