5 Things I Didn't Expect to be Different - Thanksgiving Edition
We’ve just celebrated our third Thanksgiving in New Zealand, and there are still some things I’m surprised by. Thanksgiving isn’t a Kiwi thing, but it seems like everyone here is aware of the holiday, and I received many “Happy Thanksgiving” texts and messages from Kiwis - more so than from my American friends and family. I love how people are aware and respectful of many of the different cultural events around the world here. It is one of the perks of living in a city with such a diverse population!
So what makes Thanksgiving so different here?
The weather - I’m still not used to celebrating Thanksgiving in the spring. It feels off every year. The days should be getting shorter and colder, not longer and hotter. It feels strange to spend a whole day heating up the kitchen with rich, wintery foods when what I want to be eating is ice cream and strawberries in shorts by the beach. While I logically knew that Thanksgiving would fall in the spring in the southern hemisphere, I didn’t anticipate how that would make the whole experience feel weird and unsettling.
Pie - We invited our neighbours over to enjoy some leftover pie on Friday. In my family, the focus tends to be on the quantity and variety of pies at Thanksgiving dinner, not necessarily forty three different side dishes for the turkey. This year we had apple, blueberry, and chocolate pies (sorry pumpkin!) Our neighbours were delighted at the pie invite, but came over expecting a full meal with meat pies… not the dessert pies we had on hand. We had a good laugh about this, but when I asked what they would call the pies we had on our table, they said that desserts would be specified, like “apple pie, blueberry pie, etc.”
Lesson learned: pie (generically) is assumed to be a savoury food item.
Cornbread - Cornbread is never quite right in New Zealand. There is Springbok Super Maize Meal at the grocery store, but no straight up cornmeal like in the US. The Springbok options works, but it isn’t the same flavour, colour, or texture. With that being said, our cornbread dressing this year was the best we’ve ever - and this was an unanimous decision.
American Expat Expectations - each year on the assorted American expat groups online, there are huge discussions and debates about where to find traditional American Thanksgiving food items. Things like canned pumpkin, friend onions, and cheap, huge turkeys. It’s not that I’m surprised people are looking for these things, it is how emotional people get about looking for specific brands - like Libby’s canned pumpkin. I understand it can be difficult to spend holidays in a different setting and familiar food items can help, but I always feel the urge to give people hugs and tell them that it is ok to use other sources of pumpkin. It is still Thanksgiving.
Turkeys - This was one of the best surprises about New Zealand imho. I’ve often found that the animal based proteins are better tasting in New Zealand, and the turkeys are no exception. They are insanely delicious and much more flavourful than the typical bird I’d get at the grocery store in the US. In the past, I’ve splurged and gone to Farro for turkeys, but this year we got our bird from St. John’s Butchery, and it was incredible!
If you are an expat, how do you celebrate Thanksgiving? Do you celebrate with other Americans or with people of different nationalities?
