The Foreigner's Friendsgiving

Notes on the absolute chaos of American Thanksgiving and why I love it even more from afar.

When friends from outside the U.S. ask me to pinpoint what it is that makes Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving, I always give the same answer: Chaos.

Absolute mayhem, I tell them, is the most essential ingredient. It’s non-negotiable.

The first couple of times I said this, I was mostly joking. I was thinking about all the parody sketches you might see on Saturday Night Live of families bickering with one another and satire about the family politics of gatherings. But the further away I get from the traditional Thanksgivings my family used to celebrate when I was a child, the more I remember the loud and raucous bits with fondness.

This Thanksgiving, in London, my housemates and I tried to host as chaotic of a dinner as possible. We told people to invite their exes and maybe a sibling or colleague with whom they have a bitter, jealous rivalry. We asked everyone to bring a dish and unpopular opinions to debate at the table. And we warned everyone that we might FaceTime elderly relatives to share unsolicited advice about marriage prospects and career choices.

To both our delight and dismay, the evening was absolutely lovely. We baked, cooked, and fried all day, brought our kitchen table out through the back garden and in through the living room window (it wouldn’t fit up the stairs) to combine it with a desk and a folding table so we could seat 17. We invited friends hailing from all over the world who’ve come to call London home, everyone got along, and our house puppy behaved very well and didn’t steal the turkey. Good thing, too, because it was the best Thanksgiving turkey I’ve ever had. Our friend Max covered it in bacon, the way God intended, and it was exceptional. We had to work hard to find it, too. The morning before Thanksgiving, my housemates Corey and Josh and I woke up at 2:30 a.m. to venture to the Smithfield Market, where vendors have hawked meat for 800 years. A little after 3 a.m. we finally found our prize, drove back to Hackney, and went back to sleep.

Corey and our 7-kilo turkey at the 800-year-old Smithfield Market in central London. Also pictured: at least 2 kilos of bacon. We still have so, so much bacon. Please come over for brunch, I beg you.

The longer I spend outside the U.S., the more this holiday means to me. I know it’s fraught with tension, has a bad origin story, and is way too cozy with the consumerism of Black Friday. But to me, Thanksgiving conjures memories of baking with my parents and aunts. I remember big plates of sugar cookies covered in sprinkles, with Rolos, Hershey Kisses, and mini Reese’s cups arranged carefully around them. I remember doing crafts and playing games with my cousins, or shamelessly trying to impress them when I aged into being uncomfortably in the middle of two distinct age groups of kids. I remember passionate yet (mostly) civil debates with older family members, which taught me how to challenge my own beliefs and then fight for them with conviction.

Like every good Thanksgiving, our London version had a few classic stresses that made the success of it all even sweeter. We worried we’d invited too many people, that we wouldn’t have enough chairs, that wouldn’t be able to find a turkey, that we’d forgotten to stir in some crucial ingredients into the baked goods, that we’d charred the bacon-wrapped dates and I’d overcooked my grandmother’s classic whoopie pie recipe (we upcycled the burned bits into some excellent cake pops). We worried everyone would have to very politely lie to us about the quality of the food. When it seemed like the turkey wouldn’t be ready on time, we told everyone to come an hour later, so when the turkey was miraculously done early, we worried it would be too cold to serve by the time people showed up.

But it was all for naught. Corey and I ran around the kitchen shouting and laughing, as we frantically tasted the things we were cooking and FaceTimed our families to show off our hard work. To our delight, this did indeed yield some unsolicited advice about the way we were making certain dishes. You can’t see my face right now, but I’m beaming, just thinking of it.

In the end, it was perfect, just like home—because it is home, now, London. And if there’s anything worth being grateful for this year, it’s that feeling right there.

What I’ve been writing

A gift guide for campers & hikers and a roundup of Rumpl’s prettiest, coziest blankets, both for HGTV. Also: essays on love, London, quarantining, and the dreaded “we’re not in a relationship” relationship, all for my MFA program, all works in progress, all of which will hopefully soon see the light of day from underneath quite a lot of red ink.

Coming soon: tales of London’s most underrated outdoor adventures and some opinionated advice on where you should travel next year. And, maybe, another essay or two on the best British words I stumble upon in the wild.

Questions about life in London or travel for next year? Drop them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them in the next note.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

Talk soon,

Kassondra

P.S. Keep an eye on The Guardian over the next few weeks! I’ve just written my first piece for them and I hear it’ll be in print Dec. 17.