I'm an American living in Sri Lanka. It's really tough, but I manage to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner every year. Some of the ingredients are brought over by me from the States (cranberry sauce and dried cranberries), but most of the basics can be searched out here. My Sri Lankan friends, even the ones with conservative tastes, enjoy the food. The hands-down favorite: green bean casserole. Me, I'm still a dressing fanatic. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
As long as I have my stuffing with cranberry sauce the rest of the meal is just a side attraction. 🤣 There is nothing better to have on the day after Thanksgiving than a sandwich made with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce. M'm mmm good!
@@johnsymonstcu don't like cranberry sauce, but was talked into that sandwich at Barnes and Noble café a year or two ago, and it was better than I thought
I go for juicy ham, a box of Kraft Mac and cheese and pecan pie... Mashed taters with butter and cheese ain't bad either. OH OH!! Booze. Lots of booze.
I love your content, but I absolutely adore your delivery! That slightly sarcastic, deadpan, and flummoxed British delivery is soooooo enjoyable. THANK YOU!
I've had deep fried turkey more than once. I'm just not into boiling something in oil that is so much better in flavor and more juicy when roasted in the oven.
I'm British and I've celebrated Thanksgiving with my family for many years, and yes, I make a traditional 'American' meal, it can be done. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
I lived in England until I was 15. Was very surprised when I came to the United States. Over the years I’ve really come to appreciate thanksgiving. It just kicks off the holiday season!!!
For me Halloween kicks off the holiday season. In America, we have Halloween in October and Thanksgiving in November. Therefore, I don't understand why some people in this country think that the holiday season starts in December and lasts only a month.
Oh yes, Black Friday!!! It's the one day people get into brawls over store merchandise, just one day after gathering together to be thankful for what they already have!!!!!!
I think the brawling is mostly a legend and rarely if ever happens. I’ve been to Black Friday sales and even the Thanksgiving evening sales and sometimes they are frantic but never saw any fights. Glad that this year has forced stores to offer all there Black Friday sales, even door busters, online.
@@nilus2k Just be glad you didn't live through the Cabbage Patch Riots of 1933. ;) At any rate, people have been killed in the stampedes to get into stores on Black Friday. I find it one of the more horrifying parts of our capitalist culture.
In the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Josepha Hale, proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the 26th, the final Thursday of November 1863.
Well Laurence, as an American born in Indiana, raised in California and who has a certain affinity for England, I sir say Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. I'm not sure if I qualify as an Anglophile or not but I assure you I do appreciate most all thing British...and American. That includes you, your channel and your content so please keep up the great work and enjoy the holiday of thanks shared by many cultures. Cheers
@@kandie3127 The soap thing doesn't hold up as much with modern soap. In the days of lye soap, absolutely. Now, use it if you need to, but stick it back on the burner to dry immediately thereafter and apply a thin layer of oil or grease. Generally though some kosher salt and a paper towel will scour things nicely. You still want to oil it afterwards though.
@@kandie3127 First off it’s “ there are”, not “there’s”. Plural, you see. We learn that kind of thing in primary school in the UK. Secondly, there is nothing at all wrong with using soap on iron pots. As long as you don’t go at it with some kind of abrasive thing, like a wire wool scourer, you’ll be grand.
I wasn’t taught in school about Thanksgiving being the harvest. It was more than that like the Pilgrims and Native Indians. Churches helped to make it about faith, family, and charity. Businesses made it about turkey, pies, stuffing, parades, and football. Happy Thanksgiving. I love the trifecta holidays at year’s end.
Churches didn't make it about faith.It absolutely historically WAS about faith. The Puritans were escaping religious persecution and arrived in the New World with the express purpose of worshipping in freedom. Read the Mayflower Compact. It tells you what their goals were.
The Pilgrims were celebrating the English tradition regarding the harvest and feasting, after some difficult times. The presence of the food is not commercial in origin.
I was taught that after a hard winter in which the Pilgrims had to rely on the Native Americans for food to keep from starving, the Pilgrims had a huge feast in thanks to the Native Americans for saving them and for the bountiful harvest they had to get them though the next harsh winter.
I am in Albertsons, in the checkout line with the last of our Thanksgiving Dinner groceries for tomorrow. I loved your video! From this Native American to your family, nizhónígo Ahééh Hwiindzin adííłeeł (Happy Thanksgiving)! 🦃
Black Friday as an in-store 1-day event is circling the drain. As a retail manager going into his 25th Black Friday, I won't miss it when it has finally become irrelevant.
Yeah. A few trampling deaths prompted some stores to start it on Thanksgiving. And now people are moving to buying online more and more. I imagine that trend will only speed up with the pandemic going on.
Thanks, Shelly. It was quiet, didn’t even spend it with my brothers family that lives 10 minutes away. We are being very careful, trying to get the numbers down.
Oh Heavens, I’m 41 years old, and I haven’t seen Planes, Trains and Automobiles since I was a teenager, but I absolutely love it; now I’m going to have to go find that movie and watch it again. 🙂
@@southernsmile5611 omg, yes. Watched it with a friend once, and the dinner scene made me say, "jeez, everyone is talking at once. This is like my family. " he said, "yeah, mine, too. It's why I don't go home for Thanksgiving anymore,."
---I never knew that was a Thanksgiving movie! We’ve always watched ‘Miracle on 34th Street’. We are old enough to remember the kids loved it, became teens and made fun of it, to getting to be ‘Thirty Somethings’ and love watching it again😉
Pokanoket/Wompanoag celebrated a cranberry festival (Thanksgiving) in October in which they gave thanks before a harvest and feasted after. Turkey, squash, corn, and cranberry were a part of Thanksgiving before the English showed up.
I shall dine alone, on Turkey Breast medallions, with steamed vegetables, homestyle mashed potatoes & gravy,prepared by the chefs at Boston Market, (frozen food division). PLUS jelled cranberry sauce & pumpkin pie from Aldi.
It's not all homemade, but it's plentiful, as Michael says, and therefore a blessing. My parents have both been gone a long time. I usually make myself one serving of something decadent, since I eat turkey, chicken and fish a lot. If the weather is nice, get outside, enjoy it
I am going to dine lone as well since there will be no family get together due to Covid. I only have Thanksgiving day off so I'm having chicken thighs. I'm going to roast my turkey next week when I have Weds. and Thurs. off. Then it will be turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and fresh spinach sandwiches for lunch for a few days. I'm going to make a pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving day as well.
If you forget your family is the reason for the season , getting together and appreciating that you are alive and well for one more year! God bless you and yours!
I can't believe that you called for the Lions to beat the Bears! Coming from Detroit, we got use to having two turkeys on Thanksgiving. One on the table, the other on T.V. Happy Thanksgiving!
Lol! Well you’re doing better than us here in Pittsburgh - our Thursday game got pushed back due to a covid scare. So as long as you score, you beat the Steelers on Thanksgiving! 😁👍
My best friend, a SoCal native who has lived 30 years in Seattle, is a huge Lions fan. Another friend, still in SoCal, has joined him in the fan club. We give them shit all the time about how awful the Lions are.
Ah, the old trick of using a sticky lint roller to "pet" your cat and stop the hairs at the source. Except that one time I tried to use one on my hamster just to see if it shed too... Don't ever do that. D:
Lawrence, it’s obvious you’ve learned the character of Americans like the back of your hand in your time here. You’ve figured out that the way to get us to tap on a video is to have the title telling us that something we have is superior to something else. Well done, good sir. You are a gentleman and a scholar.
In 3 hours from now, my sister will announce her first pregnancy (and my FIRST NEPHEW) via ZOOM to my entire family and if that's not the best Thanksgiving ever, then I dont know what is. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, both here and across the pond ♡♡♡
The last time I went home for Thanksgiving, it took me 8 hours to drive 210 miles. I stopped going after that and just created my own Thanksgiving feast at my house and invited friends. My non-American friends love this holiday and so have our foreign exchange students.
I live in England, I never met anyone who does thanks giving here - we don't even understand it 🤣.. Oh harvest festival doesn't seem to happen anymore - my kids have never heard of it.
In 2010 our son was studying at Leeds University in Northern England. We spent our “English” thanksgiving eating pizza and watching American football on Skye News. One of our best holidays EVER.
Spent 3 years in England (30 years ago) and a group of a dozen ex-pats rotated hosting thanksgiving dinner. Getting pumpkin and cranberry sauce and a turkey a month before Christmas was a challenge, but well worth it. One of our friends walked in the door and burst into tears, because it smelled like thanksgiving. We had much to be thankful for, even so far from friends and family.
Hey, Lawrence (I hope I spelled your name right), thanks for all of your witty and funny videos. Having been out of work since late March, I wound up spending many a day watching You Tube, and your videos always brought a smile to my face. May you and your family, and you cat, have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
I'm an American living in the Netherlands and was shocked to find there are huge black friday sales here, even though of course nobody cares about Thanksgiving. Usually I host a big meal for american and american-curious friends, but of course no dice this year, so I just cooked for myself and then had the huge pleasure of making a sandwich with the leftovers for a dutch friend in my bubble who had "heard of a thanksgiving sandwich on Friends" and was gratifyingly impressed.
I'm in Calgary, Canada. I had a turkey sandwich with stuffing and cranberry sauce from Starbucks. It was good though I'm not sure how much real turkey meat it contained. I was glad though that the meat was in one piece, and not the deli turkey slices.
Hey, Laurence... I've been a fan of your channel for awhile. And am also growing extremely fond of Kafka. We've been held hostage for nearly 5 years by Chaunsey -- he's named after Peter Sellars' character in Being There. Though perhaps he would be delicious, his relentless cuteness has prevented us from making him into a delectable casserole.
Yes! The Thanksgiving travel nightmare!! I drove for nearly 5 minutes to get to friends house where I chose to spend the day. Spending it with family would be 2-3,000 miles so, you know the old saying, you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. You know, I think I've been interpreting that saying wrong all these years...
The Thanksgiving tradition he didn't address is the annual playing of "Alice's Restaurant"! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-m57gzA2JCcM.html
I found your channel by accident and you my good man are soooo funny!!! I'm hooked and I've subscribed, lol. Thank you for starting my day with laughter!! Plus I love the information!! I'm also hooked on everything British, lol.
We cook an absolute feast for Thanksgiving, of bat sh-t crazy proportions. A really big Turkey and glazed ham plus all the sides and desserts. Family and a few friends gather here, and the best thing about thanksgiving other than seeing family/friends…is the leftovers 😂. I buy aluminum tins to send home portions of everything with the guests so they can reheat and nibble the next day. They are the size of a cake pan that holds two boxes of cakes, roughly 13x9 I think. That’s what everyone takes home. Partly because I make so many different dishes that I need room to add in whatever the guest asks for. We also do Halloween and Christmas huge. Huge outdoor displays, lots of props, the traditional Christmas meal similar to Thanksgiving, but for Halloween it’s turned into a sort of town wide event people show up to. Last year we had people drive in from an hour away to attend. We dress up as characters, serve a giant cauldron of chili soup over the fire pit so people can take a hot cup of soup with crackers/spoon, we have self serve hot chocolate dispensers, self serve adult only fireball whiskey spiked apple cider with maraschino cherries in a dispenser (guarded so kids don’t get into it), treat baggies of candy/Halloween pencil/little toys and stickers for the kids, a CapriSun drink pack each to take home, and of course a spooky display and animatronics everywhere to enjoy. Last year I decorated the interior for Halloween and put out a display of homemade cupcakes for anyone who asked to go in and look (we have large picture windows so you can see inside).
I'm up at 4:30 (which is insane) watching a man from England talk about an American holiday and promote his cats RU-vid channel. No, I didn't put any whiskey in my coffee.
In our state of Texas, we do fireworks. The guns are shot off thankfully in the distance from our house, New Year's Eve and early morning hours the next day.
When I was at Primary School in the UK in the late '70s, harvest festival was a day when we had an all-school assembly and we all brought in an item of food (usually canned) which was donated to a local care home.
Laurence, I keep hoping that you'll spend a lot of time in California, the whole coastline, the north with the giant forests and Mt. Shasta, the many giant redwood forests, the below sea level areas of Death Valley, the great zoo in San Diego and Escondido, and the vast central valley farms where almost everything can be grown.
Is that a first for your family? In my family we’ve always had both ham and turkey at thanksgiving in both my mom and dads side of the family so I’ve always thought of it as normal.
I think we're overdue for another Laurence sports quiz. I think he should try to guess another of the Big 4s sports team names. I think NHL would be fun.
I love the color of your kitchen decor behind you Laurence. The coffee pot maker, the toaster, and another pot behind your head. I’m the same way with my kitchen accents, only more of a teal color. Great job Tarrah !
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.🦃 Watching Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is a Thanksgiving tradition in our family as well. I just subscribed to Whisker Reel. Take care and 🐝 Safe. xx
You mentioned the Macy’s parade, but don’t forget the other Thanksgiving tradition, that follows immediately afterward-the national dog show! I am very much a cat person, but I love to watch the dog show, and go “doggie!” like a 3 year old. Too bad the labs and goldens never win, though.
I just discovered this channel for myself tonight and have been binge watching videos for a couple hours. I am really enjoying the humor and his take on things. PS: Pumpkin pie is gross. There I said it.
Ummm given climates are in reverse in the Southern Hemisphere, hardly. It’s nonsensical celebration this time of year. Why would you be giving thanks for the last year and harvests as you enter winter when in the Southern Hemisphere your in the middle of spring/summer and right in the middle of ongoing harvest that will continue for 5 more months. But why let facts get in the way of an American - it’s the centre of the world.
I understand your comment. I treat my Canadian Thanksgiving and Christmas as a time to be grateful and thankful for what I have in a non-religious way.
@@xr6lad Who said it had to be at the same time of the year, wtf? And there’s nothing wrong with being thankful for a good harvest, or eating well the whole year. Clearly you have a problem with an American merely suggesting something because they’re an American. Calm down with your hostility cause you’re the one coming off as a dick. And for some reason, the rest of the world is always the one to say that Americans consider themselves the center of the world when clearly you have never come to the states and met Americans because the majority don’t think that way 🙄🙄
@@xr6lad Jeez, no one said you had to have yours at the same time as North America. On the other hand, probably just best to forget it. You don't really sound like the thankful type.
Scott's ODDySEEy does a great job telling the historical story of Thanksgiving in the U.S. in his latest video "First OFFICIAL National Thanksgiving". Great video Lawrence!
Thanksgiving is about more than the food and football and parades, it is about family and getting together (even if this year that is via zoom) and truly being thankful for all we have. Having it at near the end of the year is a good thing, helps one forget the shorter days and way less sunlight. Plus, one can turn on the holiday.... no wait those go on after Halloween the Christmas lights (the actual Christmas outside decorations go up after Thanksgiving though).
In addition to the typical Thanksgiving stuff like turkey, ham, potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, etc., my dad also makes smoked salmon. We also have various pickled fruits/veggies (cucumber, okra, olives, artichokes, sometimes more) and meat, cheese, and crackers for lunch. And in addition to sweet potatoes, lately we've been making acorn squash as well, and sometimes mashed cauliflower along with the mashed potatoes, since I get kidney stones and have to be on a low-oxalate diet, which means avoiding potatoes (among lots of other things).
My wife, bless her heart, is preparing our Thanksgiving meal, as we speak. We live in the Yucatán and its moderately difficult to get the required food. I descend from 4 Mayflower passengers, who were a working class bunch; Rogers and Hopkins families. This is our 399th - 400th Thanksgiving Day meal.
Macy's Parade FTW! ^_^ My parents took us every Thanksgiving, and it was a Major Event in our childhood holiday seasons. I got lost the year I was 6 years old, and got to be in the Parade with a mounted police officer who rescued me on his horse. 6-yo me fell instantly in love (with the horse but also the cop) and cried my eyes out when I had to go back to my parents. They were not really thrilled with that
@@mayloo2137 Well, not exactly but sort of. She was born in Chicago to an American family. Her family moved to Puerto Rico and then England when she was little and then moved back to the US permanently when she was 11 but still spent summers in London. She is bidialectical and shifts between accents. She is an American citizen but says she thinks of London as her home. So I guess you could say she's technically American on paper but her national identity is more complex.
