The Thanksgiving Mega Thread

Bought some yesterday in Tesco to have with my dinner 

Woohoo!! I can make the pumpkin ahead of time! I'll look next week!

I saw one of our members in the last couple of days putting up photos (on Facebook) of the Libbys Pumpkin, already stocked & ready to go on Waitrose shelves!!  Wondering if the other supermarkets will ever catch on to the expat demand for it at this time of year? 

Too early to start thinking about Thanksgiving?  Seems miles away on a lovely warm summer weekend like this one, but it's just around the corner! 

Our Waitrose has started stocking Libby's pumpkin year round. 

Never too soon to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Even though it feels like summer, my heart knows that it's autumn. My favorite holiday is approaching! Had a relatively low key day last year, but I have a feeling this one is going to be a big one!

I saw one of our members in the last couple of days putting up photos (on Facebook) of the Libbys Pumpkin, already stocked & ready to go on Waitrose shelves!!  Wondering if the other supermarkets will ever catch on to the expat demand for it at this time of year? 

Everytime I've been I've noticed they always have at least two stocked. I've managed to build up a supply at home as a result.

Also noted the other day that Morrisons are still selling the danish crispy onions which taste the same as Frenchs Fried Onions. They're in the salad dressing aisle.

Also noted the other day that Morrisons are still selling the danish crispy onions which taste the same as Frenchs Fried Onions. They're in the salad dressing aisle.

Yeah, they always have those in stock with the salad dressing bits.

Bumping since its that time of year

I asked about this last month in a Dorset thread, but haven't heard anything back.  I will be in south Dorset for Thanksgiving this year.  It will be just me and my UK love, so I was really hoping maybe someone in the area would like to get together.  Is that weird?  I mean strangers 'n all? 

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, and I've talked to him about fearing that it might get lost in the day to day after a while of being so removed from my family and all that Thanksgiving is about.  He's promised that come what may, this year there will be a Thanksgiving, even if it's just us, and I know that it will be a wonderful day.  But I do think it might be fun to make a bit more of a do of it.  And if I can't be with family, making new friends would be pretty nice.  I make a killer turkey, and wasseil is part of every Thanksgiving and Christmas, but making the whooooollle meal is a little intimidating. 

Tickets on United are 350.00 from LHR to EWR (and probably other places).

You can pay 10.00 to hold the prices and seats for a week if you want to debate. 

I'm nowhere near Dorset but this will be my third year celebrating thanksgiving abroad and I find you may have to make your own new "traditions" but it's perfectly doable to make a big holiday of it.  My Scottish MIL and some of our friends and neighbors are always happy to celebrate with us and to learn about what it actually entails (and bring a dish or two to share).  Hope you have a great one!!

I asked about this last month in a Dorset thread, but haven't heard anything back.  I will be in south Dorset for Thanksgiving this year.  It will be just me and my UK love, so I was really hoping maybe someone in the area would like to get together.  Is that weird?  I mean strangers 'n all? 

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, and I've talked to him about fearing that it might get lost in the day to day after a while of being so removed from my family and all that Thanksgiving is about.  He's promised that come what may, this year there will be a Thanksgiving, even if it's just us, and I know that it will be a wonderful day.  But I do think it might be fun to make a bit more of a do of it.  And if I can't be with family, making new friends would be pretty nice.  I make a killer turkey, and wasseil is part of every Thanksgiving and Christmas, but making the whooooollle meal is a little intimidating. 

Not sure if anyone is still keeping up with this thread or not. It's DD's first Thanksgiving this year! It's just going to be the three of us (well, two and a half!) and we are pretty broke so I'm just doing a scaled down version of the regular thing. I picked up a few cheesy looking decorations at the dollar store while I was in the US and I will put that stuff out and DD has a cute Thanksgiving dress and bib with a turkey on it. I'm making a turkey and stuffing casserole with turkey breast fillets, onion gravy, sweet potato mash, green bean casserole (I'm trying a "from scratch" recipe that doesn't use condensed soup since I don't really like it anymore) and a jar of cranberry sauce. Not sure about dessert yet, but I don't have any pumpkin and DH doesn't like pumpkin pie anyway, so I may make an apple pie or something. DD will have some sort of turkey and sweet potato puree and then pureed pumpkin with nutmeg and cinnamon for pudding.

Hello,

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK?

I've lived in the UK for a couple of years now, but this will be my first year in the UK on Thanksgiving!

My parents just booked a last-minute trip here for Thanksgiving and will be joining me and my husband.

Now, I need a plan!  What do you do to celebrate Thanksgiving here?

I'm wondering if I should keep it simple with just my parents, myself, and DH... or if we should invite his family over for a big meal?  Or keep it really simple and go to Toby Carvey (not totally kidding!)....

I would love to hear what you do for Thanksgiving and how you've adapted the holiday now that you live in the UK.

I love the big meal idea but am worried that my DH's family will think all our side dishes are totally gross...  I mean really, have you ever described a green bean casserole to anyone British?  They freak out!  lol!

My husband and I will be travelling back to the States to be with my family this Thanksgiving. It's the husbands first Thanksgiving! Knowing my family we will probably have turkey, chicken dressing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, macaroni and cheese and pies of all sorts. I told my mom today that I'll be making and taking little Yorkshire puddings. Mom thought they were a dessert! I'll probably just take a big bowlful and not tell anyone what they are until the middle of dinner.  

Since this is my husbands first Thanksgiving (we will have been married a year 19 December) I'm super excited about it. I've already stocked up on British candies and sweets for my mom and two little cousins. I'm also hoping to bring back a stock of American candies and sweets that I haven't been able to find here yet (as well as some long bottomed pj's!).

We are flying out this Thursday morning, and I keep wanting to cook since I love cooking so much. I have to keep reminding myself "you don't need to restock the fridge, you don't need to cook anything that will make leftovers! It will just go bad!!!"

My MIL and her husband looooove thanksgiving now!  This is the third year we'll have celebrated it with them and they love the sweet potatoes (although I don't make them sweeter with sugar, marshmallows, etc like is sometimes the tradition), they love american biscuits and they love pecan pie.  Pumpkin pie not so much so I've made chocolate chip pumpkin cookies this year.  You'd be surprised how interested Brits can be in learning more about thanksgiving and that includes trying all of the traditional dishes!  Although I don't like the green bean casserole with condensed soup and we never had it growing up but instead had green beans from the garden : )  You may have to adapt a few bits but I'd say go for it and have the whole family round!

Hello,

How do you celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK?

I've lived in the UK for a couple of years now, but this will be my first year in the UK on Thanksgiving!

My parents just booked a last-minute trip here for Thanksgiving and will be joining me and my husband.

Now, I need a plan!  What do you do to celebrate Thanksgiving here?

I'm wondering if I should keep it simple with just my parents, myself, and DH... or if we should invite his family over for a big meal?  Or keep it really simple and go to Toby Carvey (not totally kidding!)....

I would love to hear what you do for Thanksgiving and how you've adapted the holiday now that you live in the UK.

I love the big meal idea but am worried that my DH's family will think all our side dishes are totally gross...  I mean really, have you ever described a green bean casserole to anyone British?  They freak out!  lol!

I do green beans with sage and pancetta, the idea of using soup for anything other than soup freaks me out (British) Although they can be done with toasted almonds, there's lots of lovely slightly fancied up green bean recipes.  You could do something like this
http://www.foodnetwork.com/holidays-and-parties/50-classic-thanksgiving-side-dish-recipes/pictures/index.html


I also do baked sweet potatoes but without the marshmallow, but have been known to put a sort of crumble on top with maple syrup but I don't know, sweet and turkey?

I make mac and cheese, and pumpkin pie & peanut butter oreo pie. Biscuits or sometimes corn bread. Creamed spinach. Mashed potatoes, I make homemade sage, onion and sausagemeat stuffing which isn't very american, boy hates american stuffing anyway

What else? Sometimes I go crazy and do brussel sprouts, because I love them, even though they're not American at all.

Skimming through the 60 pages of this thread, I note that I have posted before about how I don't do a Thanksgiving dinner and never have in the time I have been in the UK.  But you guys are giving me some great ideas for side-dishes for our Christmas Day and Boxing Day feasts!  Cheers! 

I've invited a bunch of my husband's friends and their wives over for it the Saturday after (also my bday). I have never prepared Thanksgiving even when I lived in the states, so this should be interesting!!

I did find some cans of pumpkin a few weeks back at the pop-up Harvey Nichols shop..so pumpkin pie is on the list!