Let’s forget about Xmas.
Last Thursday was the first Thanksgiving of my life, and probably it’s not gonna be the last one. I loved this new festivity so much that I probably will start celebrating Thanksgiving every year from now on.
I mean, it was way too different from the old, traditional Christmas day spent at home with the entire family where the most exciting thing you can get is “winning the Tombola”, (but in my family we stopped play it a couple of years ago, so no more fun).
First of all, at Thanksgiving you don’t have to sit around a table for 5 hours until Panettone is served. Here you can lay on the couch, eat your turkey with sweet potato like if you were in Colonne (ed. Colonne di San Lorenzo, Milan) for an happy-hour. And most important thing, you can drink as much wine as you want without feeling guilty for being drunk in front of your grandma.
My american friends told me that Thanksgiving was born as a family-traditional celebration but from the ‘90s people started spending this festivity with friends just because it’s more practical than go to your family’s house (maybe miles and miles away from where you are, and of course it’s not the same thing to go from Milan to Varese!).
Since I was not familiar with this american tradition, I failed my preparation. So if you wanna get ready for next year, just remember:
Stop eating from the day before. During Thanksgiving you will eat a lot and if you want to fully enjoy the dinner, you should better have an empty stomach.
Even if you were told to come at 1pm, you should probably start eating at 4/5pm. While you are waiting, you can help with all the cooking stuff, you can watch american football on tv or you can just relax and have some appetizers, like the amazing Cheeseball (I’ve never eaten something more delicious than Cheeseball since I’ve been here).
Just remember to not exaggerate with both the appetizers (unless you wanna be able to arrive at dessert) or the wine. I made some wrong calculations about the wine, so at the end of the night I started feeling headache because of that.
If you want a suggestion, start drinking heavily during the dinner and not before!
If you’re not american, bring something traditional to eat with you because they will love it. I made some tiramisù for Thanksgiving, and even if it was my first tiramisu ever made, it was really good and they fall in love with it.
Just one last thing. As you probably know, the day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday, so if you are going to waste your money around remember to retain some strengths for it and not being like me, laying all day in bed watching Grey’s Anatomy because Thanksgiving’s dinner almost killed me.
Luckily, Cyber Monday is around the corner.