Bingo in Smoking

As any red, white and blue-blooded, well-versed, gen-u-ine Ameri-person will tell you, one’s cultural identity is based upon the events that take place on the following dates:

April 16: The Day After Tax Day
Key ingredients: Large quantities of alcohol to drown out the undeniable fact that you have just spent upwards of $12 to send forms (probably filled out incorrectly) to the IRS overnight. Somewhere between “sober” and “unable to control bodily functions,” you will inevitably realize that you make little enough money that you could’ve just done the whole thing over the phone.

July 4th: The Fourth of July
Key ingredients: A pontoon boat homemade by your male relatives out of empty plastic drums and plywood; several large and noisy and orgasmically menacing pyrotechnic items; and lots and lots of very cheap beer. Somewhere between “sober” and “Hey, let’s run an extention cord out to the boat from the house so we can hook up some lights and the stereo!” you realize that you have inadvertently driven your truck into the lake.

The third Thursday of November: Thanksgiving
Key ingredients: Food. Namely, a dish suggested by NPR’s The Splendid Table which calls for – when one doubles the recipe – 2 small cloves of garlic. You and the artist formerly known as your boyfriend make this dish; unfortunately, you have the combined culinary prowess of a large rock and mistake a bulb for a clove, thereby multiplying the intended garlic content of said dish by six. Furthermore, in the absence of a food processor, you combine the cheese and liquid items in a blender.

Though specific traditions will vary depending on the family you’ve been bestowed upon, they invariably involve the exponential increase of any and all neuroses. By which I mean “creating a seating chart.” Despite any amount of planning to keep families together and the silly idealism of casting aside generation gaps, the arrangement was some variation of this:

While the adults’ table was adrift in the calm seas of Thanksgiving merriment, the kids’ table was without fail a proverbial monsoon of pandemonium: Aaron spills Kool-Aid all over Tiffany, Tim eats all of the mashed potatoes without making sure that everyone has had first helpings, T.J. is on Megan’s “side” of the bench (as if there were enough room to allocate personal space), and two of the little ones, whose names everyone has forgotten, have to eat under the table as there is not enough available seating at ground level.

We loved it.

I must say, though, that celebrating Thanksgiving in Britain was quite a change of pace. There was no raucous air of impending disaster, no forceable pie consumption, no even remembering it was Thanksgiving until receiving a MySpace comment asking whether or not Thanksgiving is celebrated in the UK. Apparently not. Especially since my Thanksgiving dinner consisted of some Brazil nuts, rice and a bowl of Lucky Charms, which my mother transported from the homeland in October. There is no better way to give thanks than over a bowl filled with tiny marshmallow manifestations of someone’s paranoia.

TRICKS AND TREATS

Bring Lucky Charms to the UK!
Big D and the Kids Table – Can’t Be Caught
Give Thanks for Mad Libs