Happy ThanksChristmas!!

I know you're probably all sitting at your computers with confused looks thinking, "ThanksChristmas, what is that?" Don't worry all will be explained, including the term's origins, but basically it's exactly what it sounds like. It's an international holiday that combines the American holiday of Thanksgiving with the well known holiday of Christmas. It's really a spectacular celebration with the best of both traditions. You get to have two of the three American F's of Thanksgiving: family(friends in this instance) and food, excluding football, and the cheesy Christmas songs without having to spend all of the money that you don't have on gifts for everyone else. In essence, it's an excuse to get together with good friends, exchange cultural traditions, and eat amazing food while listening to Christmas carols. So how did such a hybrid holiday come into existence you might ask. I only have four names for you, Nicole, Catrin, Zoe, and myself.

Seeing as there are people from all parts of the world reading this blog an explanation of Thanksgiving might be in order. Okay, Thanksgiving is an American holiday that falls on the fourth Thursday of November. Most people get out of school or off from work the day before. As a caution to anyone who may be coming to visit in November be forewarned that the Wednesday before and the weekend after Thanksgiving are some of the most traveled days in America. Anyways, it originated at the end of the harvest season the first year that the pilgrims were in America. Supposedly the Pilgrims and the Indians got together to give thanks for having survived the first year. In more recent times it has become a tradition of family, food, and of course one of America's favorite sports, football. Regardless of its origins though it is a tough time to be an exchange student four thousand miles away from your family and their home cooking.

Personally I was never really all that worried about what I was going to do on Thanksgiving. The way I saw it I was going to Britain to get away from America and if that meant American holidays too then I was okay with it. I figured we would probably just do something with friends and it turns out I was right. I wasn't expecting however to invent a new international holiday and to spend it with British students as well as Americans. I must say though it was one of the best holidays I've ever had.

Here's how it began. My American friend Nicole and I were trying to come up with something to do for Thanksgiving. We were planning on just getting together for dinner, not so much to cook an elaborate meal but mostly just so that we wouldn't be alone on Thanksgivning. That was the plan until about two weeks before when we mentioned it in front of her two British flatmates Catrin and Zoe. Like most Brits they had heard of Thanksgiving but they still wanted an explanation of it. So Nicole and I told them about the family, food, and football and they told us that it sounded a lot like their Christmas holiday, minus the football (soccer to them) of course. Five minutes later the two holidays had merged traditions as well as names and two weeks later Nicole, Zoe and her boyfriend Tom, Catrin, my Welsh flatmate Sara, Nicole's American flatmate Amanda, and I were celebrating the first ThanksChristmas. Below are pictures from the special occasion. Zoe cooked the world's greatest ten pound turkey that Catrin deemed Sir Gobbles of Gobblester. Catrin and Zoe both baked two incredible apple pies although the first one looked a little funny the second one was perfect and Nicole and I made the dressing. We also had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese compliments of my mother and FedEx, cranberry sauce from a jar because you can't get it in a can over there (Nicole, Amanda, and I missed having the little ridges imprinted in the sauce), and of course mashed potatoes and parsnips which are basically the same thing as potatoes. So put on some Christmas carols and enjoy the pictures, laugh a little (we laughed a lot), and have yourselves a happy ThanksChristmas.















We had ThanksChristmas at Nicole's flat and Catrin was playing DJ when I came over. She was pretty good at it too.











I was serious when I said that Zoe could cook. Also, everyone meet Sir Gobbles and his comitatus of potatoes and parsnips...yum!







This would be my ThanksChristmas dinner. Good food, good meat, good God let's eat!












Is Catrin asleep or praying?














Catrin and Zoe with the second apple pie. It looks awesome and it tasted even better. We had to wait an hour to eat it. I'm telling you, ThanksChristmas was incrdible!



Well that's it for ThanksChristmas in Wales. It was an experience to say the least but as I said above it was also one of the best holidays that I've ever had! Catrin is an American Studies major and as part of her requirements for graduation she has to spend a year studying abroad in America. That's right we're already making plans for a ThanksChristmas in 2008! We don't know where she'll be studying but hopefully Nicole and I will be with her in November. I know that I didn't mention ThanksChristmas in my previous list of posts to catch up on but the more I get back into this blogging thing the more (mis)adventures I'm remembering. There will also be a post about my four day trip to Dublin, Ireland with Nicole as well as a couple about different events that happened in Swansea. Amsterdam should be next but a lot of these are out of chronological order, sorry. This blog is to serve more as a travel log than a time line though so as long as I cover all of the happenings and trips we should be good to go. I hope that you have enjoyed your ThanksChristmas in Wales. I loved mine, thanks to my friends and our crazy ideas. Also, Catrin and Zoe should you stumble upon this post please share it with Amy, I'm sure that she'll get a kick out of it. Please feel free to leave comments. Even if I don't know you I'd love to hear what you think about this blog and my time in Wales. I hope that everyone is still doing well. Hopefully I'll get Amsterdam up in a couple of days. Until then take care.