By Zoe Robinson
When I first tried to explain the concept of Thanksgiving to my Australian exchange student, Flo, I was amazed at how complicated it all seemed.
First things first, I wanted to tell her the Thanksgiving story so she could understand the point of the holiday (and prep for my AmStud history exam), and she seemed to be left a tad confused. “If it’s about being together the whole time, do you guys not fight?” she asked.
I very quickly explained to her that Thanksgiving is one of the most stressful times of the year, and oftentimes comes with an appropriate amount of fighting, but is still a very enjoyable holiday. When I realized that this still didn’t make sense to her (“Then why do you still do it if it’s so hard?”), I told her to watch any Gossip Girl Thanksgiving scene, and then she would understand. That seemed to do the trick.
On the way to North Carolina, I told her about another important American piece of Thanksgiving media: the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Because we had no WiFi on the drive up through the mountains, I did my best to explain to her how fun it is to watch the elaborate floats and giant balloons come across the screen, and compare them to the ones from previous years.
I also told her that the Bluey balloon was one of my personal favorites and that it would probably remind her of home. She quickly reminded me that not every single Australian person watches Bluey and ended the conversation (although later, she did admit to me that she liked the balloon quite a bit).
When we finally arrived after the exhausting 4-hour trip, we got to my cousin’s house around 11:30 am- just in time to start dinner. “Are you expected to cook nonstop all day?!,” she asked, to which I replied that it’s part of the standard Thanksgiving experience.
She quickly got a taste of the fun chaos of the Thanksgiving kitchen that I’d tried to explain to her as we helped out a bit with the food before I showed her around the house and their neighborhood. When we got back home, she was able to meet all of my family and impress them all with her cool accent. It was my uncle’s first time meeting anyone from Australia, and she made sure to tell him all the places he should visit when he came to Australia and not to be afraid of snakes or spiders.
As my family and I got dressed up and ready to sit down to dinner, I made sure she knew which traditional Thanksgiving dishes she needed to try: stuffing, corn pudding, and my mom’s cranberry sauce. She loved all 3, but I forgot about the major one. “Your Thanksgiving turkey is so much better than our regular turkey,” she reminded me, “I was not prepared.”
We laughed about that and went outside with my cousins to play a game of Old Maid, one of Flo’s favorite card games to play in the boarding house, and watch some football. Her knowledge of American football had grown so much from the exchange that she was able to participate in cheering on the players, and said that watching it made her feel “really American,” which was the perfect thing to feel on Thanksgiving.
She told me how tired she was from the whole day, and I told her that part of that exhaustion was probably from the turkey. She thought I’d made that up to try and “trick the Australian,” but quickly fell asleep upstairs.
As we packed up the next morning to head home, she told me that I was right about how fun Thanksgiving was and that she was glad to have experienced it with my family. I told her how glad I was that she had fun, before reminding her that she should’ve listened to me about the turkey.
