Aphrodisia Authors :: Blog

When I first moved to the U.S. from the UK ten years ago I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself on all the American holidays. I knew all about the 4th of July but what were President’s day, Labor day and Thanksgiving all about?

In England the most exciting thing that happens in November is Bonfire Night on the 5th of November which commemorates the attempt by Guy Fawkes and his conspirators to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 when the King came to visit. His plot didn’t work and to celebrate, we Brits light bonfires and set off fireworks. (a bit like the 4th of July I suppose in reverse )

You can imagine me trying to explain this bit of peculiarly British history to my new Californian neighbors- Me: “Yeah, we light a bonfire and toss a guy on it until he goes up in flames.”
Shocked neighbor:”You burn a guy A real one?”

Which leads me to Thanksgiving. As a history major, who wrote her thesis about the Welsh Quakers who settled in Pennsylvania 400+ years ago, I was totally fascinated by the whole Thanksgiving story. I was also surprised to hear that the tradition of commemorating that day hadn’t actually been going on since it happened.

But I get it. In fact, I’ve come to appreciate it as the anti-Christmas, the time when we can all get together as a family and with friends without the frantic gift buying to get in the way. The first couple of years we lived here, we were invited to several homes for Thanksgiving-a gift that made us feel so welcome in a strange land, at a time when our kids who had no other family around them, they were embraced by new ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’, ‘grandparents’, friends.

This year it will just be us, our 4 kids and Granny from Ireland, but we will enjoy the day and the pleasure of living here and give thanks for being lucky enough to end up in such a beautiful place.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Kate Pearce x