Gimme some Thanksgiving

I've decided that Thanksgiving is a bitchin holiday.

The realisation of this has mostly dawned from living outside the US in the country from whence our dear pilgrims set sail, met our regal native brethren and invited them over for a dinner party - 17th century style. The English do love their dinner parties and have a mastery of them that would bring Martha Stewart to her knees. Let's face it, this original one must have been a rager considering we've been carrying it on religiously for hundreds of years.

But why did it take leaving the U.S. to have this epiphany? Easy - as with everything else, you don't know what you've got until it's gone. Let me outline a few of the many reasons Thanksgiving down right rocks (and my darling English friends, you know the depths of my love for this land in which I'm now living so please don't take offence):

1. I can't believe I'm saying this but hey, it's a non-denominational thang

For those of you who know me best, PC has never been an apt descriptive. But I've got to admit having a holiday for everyone to celebrate on the same day each year is downright brilliant. There's no 'does your family celebrate Thanksgiving?' - of course we do dammit we're all food eaters at the end of the day, are we not?

2. Christmas starts too f*^king early without it
Without the buffer of Thanksgiving and Halloween being a bit of a novelty, Christmas literally kicks in in the beginning of November. No joke. And when I say kicks in, I mean streets are lit up with Christmas lights, advertisements switch to Christmas themes and think I even heard Mariah's Christmas anthem All I Want for Christmas is You around the 5th of November... It's an endless cycle of jingle bells and by the end of it you're ready to wring the jingle right out of that damn bell.

3. The feast

Enough said. Except for maybe that buying a Turkey in England is an investment of epic scale. None of this massive locker business with frozen turkeys popping up at each grocery store. Oh and don't look for fresh cranberries either. It's cranberry 'relish' or bust.

4. The Thankful bit

Seriously good idea - seriously. I think many of us know that we SHOULD look at all of our blessings and be thankful for them each day but honestly how often does that really happen? I'm more likely to be found searching the web for images of Juan Epstein (from Welcome Back Kotter, c’mon people!) than giving thanks. Therefore a holiday that really does give us a moments pause and a gentle reminder to take stock of all that's good in our lives is sheer genius. Take a minute and you can easily think of 5 things. Go ahead, do it! It's Thanksgiving after all...

Have I glossed over the weight gain, alcohol-fuelled family arguments and ceaseless hours of football (American of course)? Yes, yes I have. Because the aforementioned make the downsides easy to forget.

Happy Thanksgiving and lots of love to all!