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Thats my attempt to create a shorthand version of Thanksgiving (along the lines of xmas for Christmas). Not sure its gonna catch on the way xmas has, but what's life without experimentation?

I've now negotiated American as well as Canadian Thanksgivings. No mean feat I can tell you. This side of the border, the national holiday on the 4th Thursday of November is all about giving thanks for the food that helped the first invaders, er.. sorry, explorers survive when they landed in the New World. Its a celebration that owes a lot to the traditions around harvest festival from the Christian dominated 'old world' of Europe. By the by, the very same day also sees the observence of a National Day of Mourning by a large group of Native Americans (not sure if thats the PC name or not) as a counter-protest of sorts against Thanksgiving in memory of the democide of their people. Democide is defined as 'the murder of any people by government'. That one's not so widely known or celebrated here.

OK, American history lesson over. Here's a quick visual rundown of my US Fnxgvg...I joined A's family (plus a few extras) for Thanksgiving here in Washington DC. This is the assembled posse around the dinner table. From the left we have person x (youngest son) person y (Momma) Tommy Crawsort (you know him) person z (eldest child and girlfriend of Tommy C) alpha (family friend) beta (whose name I can't remember, but who is a lovely Japanese lady who works with Kay) and gamma (Papa). They very kindly took Tom and I under their wing for the turkey feast that was Thanksgiving dinner. Their feast was very similar to Xmas dinner at my house, but with a few subtle differences. Firstly, and most disturbingly, the kids prepared and cooked the feast in its entirety. This is a trend I do not want to see replicated in the Holm household. I'm not being workshy you understand, its just that I know how important the turkey dinner is to my family of gourmands, so to leave it in the hands of the younger generation could well jeopardise the happiness of a family for the festive period. Thankfully some sense prevailed with the culinary duties and Tom (dad, not boyfriend) retained the all-important task of carving the turkey. It seems that some of the tasks associated with fatherhood are the same the world over. Here's Tom taking the electric carver to the lovingly prepared turkey. Take particular note of the colour of the turkey's skin. Can you see the amazing brown glow of it? That there is obtained by barbequeing the whole damn turkey! Have you heard of that before? Well I hadn't, but I tell you it came out looking mighty fine. Tasted pretty good too.

So the kids cook and they bbq the turkey. Different to how we do it, but one thing was very similar to xmas turkey Holm family style and it made me feel very much at home - the dinner was washed down with a good amount of vino. They pulled out the good stuff (hat tip to Niko for this one as it was selected from the Napa Valley trip) and Tom and I obliged as only the finest English gentlemen guest would. Inevitably we were the last men standing at the end of the night (even A couldn't keep up with us - and don't worry I won't write about your drunken antics) and we decided to round of the evening with, what else but experimental slow shutter photography. Hmmm, so this probably makes us look weird. I blame the turkey overdose.




All in all its been another very enjoyable port of call on my rapidly dwindling North American adventure. Aside from eating turkey we managed to squeeze in some tennis, ten-pin bowling, mah jong, a group pilates session, a few good (and some frankly bizarre) movies and a lovely brisk walk along the Billy Goat's Trail. Today I also got a free ticket to an NFL game, which was a lot of fun. I witnessed around 90,000 (its a HUGE stadium) of this country's finest folk cheering, whooping, hollering, yelling and eating their way through four quarters plus overtime of American Football. The game action was of a much higher standard than the college game I went to and I finally ate my first hot dog of the trip as well. It will be my last.

Tomorrow is time for yet another bag packing session as I hit the sky once again. I'm flying to Chicago for the briefest possible stay, before moving onward to the Texas heat of Austin. I really cannot wait to get to some sunshine and hotness. Bring on the sun!

Fare ye well good people.