I hope you all enjoyed a relaxing Thanksgiving yesterday, and made the most of America’s holiday dedicated specifically to eating and watching TV. In France, it was just another Thursday; no turkeys, pilgrims, or “harvest” celebrations were to be found anywhere in Lyon. In fact, I even had classes yesterday, and both of my professors actually showed up, a true rarity. But while everyone is getting ready for Christmas here in Lyon (a little early if you ask me), Thanksgiving passed by the French without so much as a friendly gobble.The root of the problem is that the French do not understand the holiday, plain and simple. They do not bother with translating its title into French, and simply say “Happy Thanksgiving” (featuring that distinct French challenge of pronouncing an “H” at the beginning of a word) with a smirk whenever it is brought up. In a variety of forums, from my high school students I tutor to my host family to dinner guests, I tried to explain the reasoning behind it, and all I received in return were blank stares. There is no point of reference for them, this day when Americans simply celebrate what is around them. To the French, they are pretty sure we all silently eat TV dinners every night by ourselves, and they believe that their concept of a family dinner fully makes up for one random day. Thus, at the heart of it they find it simply pointless.
History lessons about the origins of Thanksgiving are another topic of conversation that quickly digresses into confusion and cultural misunderstandings. “Native Americans” is a tough one, considering that the French are very proud of the fact that they are the real French who have been in France for thousands of years, and never had to boot anyone from the land in order to make room. Also, apparently Squanto is not as much of a celebrity here, as his name continually falls on deaf ears whenever I drop it as part of the history. But again, turkeys, pilgrims, harvest, all are either new concepts or new vocab for the conversation, and usually I get bogged down in the Mayflower part of the story, and have to quickly summarize the rest (“point is they had a big meal, that’s basically it”). My 17th century American history lessons are not quite up to par with my 21st century rants, but we’re getting there.
But the main problem is the French think they understand the holiday, and this only leads to further mockery of the United States. To be fair, my description of a typical Thanksgiving with my family involves sleeping in late, watching football (or the Dog Show, if my sister has the remote), and then eating my biggest meal of the entire year. Clearly, the Frenchies all hear that and kind of smile and say “well, it is America after all.” If there is two things that the French love to bash on about America, it is that we are fat and love American football, a sport they will never begin to attempt to understand (they already have the “real” football, what else could they possibly need?). At that point of the conversation, each of my audiences gets that look on their face that just screams, “ah, we are so above that.” Language, still a struggle, but I can read facial expressions thank you very much.
Despite the overwhelming obstacles facing us, the Americans in the group did manage to make the most of the holiday. An apparent Penn-in-Lyon tradition, all the students and the host families (plus a couple real families here for the holiday) went to a fancy Lyonnais restaurant, all dressed up of course, for a highly-anticipated dinner. They tried to make the food as American as possible, and after the ratatouille appetizer we did receive some turkey, potatoes and cranberry sauce (my number one Thanksgiving dish) for our main course, with pumpkin pie arriving for the egg-ivores at the end. Not quite the same stuffed turkey, biscuits, and canned cranberry sauce that I have come to love and miss, but for the French, not bad.
In terms of atmosphere, we took it to a new level, even if it had nothing to do with Thanksgiving. The dilemma facing our program director was that there really is no traditional celebration to go along with all the eating. So, we started with the next best thing: Christmas songs. Featuring hits such as the 12 days of Christmas (in the round, of course), Jingle Bells, and even a couple random (apparently “classic”) French ones, some of us were bold/dumb enough to attempt to lead everyone in rousing song. Lyrics were provided for all, but seemed to help no one. Not sure if the host families were more intimidated by our gumption or embarrassed for our clear lack of talent, but at least we had a good time making fools of ourselves.
So there you have it, my first holiday abroad, one of the harder parts about being out of the States. There’s obviously no replacement for that family meal, with the stories that invariably come out every year and the family members that you can never seem to spend enough time with. But there are only a few weeks until this abroad experience is over, and the focus now is on making the most of our short time left. Even if that means forgetting about the things back home that you miss the most, now is the time to realize what you have here.
In a sense, it’s all about giving thanks.
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