By Suzan Haskins and Dan Prescher https://internationalliving.com
U.S. and Canadian retirees live in dozens of countries around the world, and one thing that ties overseas expat communities together is the celebration of familiar holidays from back home.
Thanksgiving is just such a holiday. Canadians celebrate it on the second Monday in October, and in the U.S. we celebrate it on the fourth Thursday of November, no matter where in the world we happen to be.
We asked a few of our far-flung friends to share their Thanksgiving plans with us, and their answers show how socially and gastronomically creative expats can be…especially when celebrating a winter holiday in places where the feast may take place beachside and snow may never have fallen!
Village beach, Placencia, Belize.
Ann Kuffner lives in Belize, and she says she and her husband, Mike, usually attend a potluck dinner of mostly expats…and some Belizeans.
“Belizeans love to participate in our Thanksgiving celebrations,” Ann reports, “as they are always up for a party. But they have to work all day on Thanksgiving, since it’s not a Belizean holiday. So they join the party later in the afternoon. But there are always multiple pot lucks going on at expat’s homes and everyone brings a dish or two.”
Turkey is hard to find in Belize, but the poultry stores stockpile turkeys at Thanksgiving and Christmas, Ann says.
“Otherwise, we can get most of what we need, other than fresh pumpkin. So we use canned pumpkin for pies. Sweet potatoes, string beans, and bags of cranberries are available around the holidays. They are all very expensive, but hey, it’s Thanksgiving! We bite the bullet and pay to have our favorite Thanksgiving staples.”
In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Jason Holland and his family plan to gather with friends for a traditional Thanksgiving.
“We have a large house, so we’ll probably end up inviting more folks, too. Local supermarkets carry just about every ingredient we need. There’s turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and even pumpkin pie (my favorite).
“We’ll probably watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade,” Jason says. “I’m not a football fan, but it’s available. With our cable TV package and online TV/apps, it’s easy to watch U.S. channels if we want.
“I’ve heard of several such meals already being planned. Many expats have huge groups of friends gathering together. When you don’t have immediate family close by, your expat family stands in.
As for the weather, Jason says, “I expect it to be sunny and clear. It’s dry season in the Colonial Highlands. The mornings are crisp, but not too cold. And the afternoons are warm, likely about 65 F. Who knows, maybe we’ll eat outside on the terrace.”
Ostuni, olives, Adriatic. Ostuni gazes over a sea of olive groves to the Adriatic Sea. Ostumi, Puglia, Italy.
In rural southern Italy, Valerie Schneider and her partner don't have other expats close at hand for Thanksgiving, but that doesn't mean they give up their treasured traditions.
“We usually make a small dinner at home, adjusting the obligatory trappings of the meal to serve just the two of us. For example, turkey breast cutlets in white wine sauce with stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.
“We did a big blow-out meal once,” Valerie says, “not long after moving to Basilicata, to thank all our friends—new and old—for their help in our home renovations, in bringing us in to their community, and helping us acclimate. A friend's brother is a butcher so he got us an enormous turkey and I cooked a feast for 30 people at another friend's agriturismo restaurant kitchen! It was a big task, but they all loved it. They'd seen the holiday scenes in movies and were thrilled to get to participate themselves. We've repeated a smaller Thanksgiving dinner for a few friends through the years.”
Going with the flow…or creating new traditions…is something Wendy DeChambeau knows something about. She’s lived with her family in Cotacachi, Ecuador for the past six years and reports that they’ve celebrated Thanksgiving in a variety of ways in that time.
“We've celebrated with just the four of us (myself, my husband David, and our sons Justin and Jesse) at home, we've celebrated on airplanes while traveling, and one year we even mixed U.S. and Latin foods while hosting a friend from Colombia.”
This year, Wendy says they’ve invited several other expat couples to their home for Thanksgiving.
“We’ll be serving traditional fare like ham (from a local farm owned by other expats), mashed potatoes (we have dozens of varieties to choose from here) and "pumpkin" pie which I make from a native squash called zapallo.”
Wendy says that, even though it's the rainy season in Cotacachi, the rains have mostly been coming at night with sunny beautiful days in between. “This nice weather should give us the chance to get outside and toss around a football while the ham is in the oven.”
In Da Nang, Vietnam, where she currently lives, Wendy Justice hasn’t yet spent a Thanksgiving but says “I've enjoyed several during my five years living in Hanoi, which has a fairly large American expat community. We would always go to the Moose and Roo Smokehouse at the American Club, where we’d each order a large plate of turkey with gravy and stuffing, cranberries, green beans or asparagus, mashed potatoes with gravy, and a glass of hot spiced cider.”
She says this feast typically costs less than $20 per person. “That might sound expensive, but turkey is not a meat commonly sold in this part of the world, and having dinner at the Moose costs a lot less than buying the ingredients yourself (you could, some of the expat supermarkets sell whole turkeys and all the trimmings, but it can be prohibitively expensive).”
“One of the things that we liked about Thanksgiving in Hanoi,” says Wendy, “was that the autumn weather would be in full-swing. Colder days were still to come, but on Thanksgiving, we could wear fleece jackets and long pants and the heaters would be set out next to the tables in the outdoor patio.”
Riviera Maya , Mexico.
Don Murray and his wife, Diane, are celebrating their fourth Thanksgiving in Cancun, on Mexico’s beautiful Riviera Maya.
“The first year, we weren’t sure what to do or where to go,” Don says. “Several of the large resorts in the area serve a local version of a traditional meal, but then we wouldn’t have any leftovers. So, we set about planning our feast. All the major supermarket chains have most of what’s needed, but Costco (yes, there is a Costco in Cancun) is our go-to source for holiday meal fixings.”
So he and Diane bought a large, pre-baked pumpkin pie from Costco as well as a large turkey and found plenty of fresh veggies in the local open market.
“As we unloaded the car, a friendly couple struck up a conversation and we invited them to join us for our feast. These wonderful people were visiting from Canada and have become great friends over the years.
There will be no snow in the forecast and the temperature will hover between 75 F and 80 F. If we wish, we can find an American football game on television and when it comes time for a nap, I’ll be caressed by warm Caribbean breezes.”
Surfers. Tamarindo beach, Tamarindo, Costa Rica.
And in Costa Rica, Jackie Minchillo and her husband plan to travel from the Pacific Coast town of Tamarindo where they live to the country's capital of San Jose.
“We have a group of friends that is a mix of expats and Ticos, and a few of us will be participating in a CrossFit competition in San Jose on Thanksgiving weekend. So we plan to rent a big house and make a big holiday celebration out of it.
“Last year here at the beach it was difficult to find some of the traditional fixings, like turkey and plain crust for pumpkin pie. But in San Jose you pretty much have access to anything you might want. One of our friends is from there and says there's a place we can pre-order a turkey. I assume we'll end up with a big pot luck style meal full of traditional Thanksgiving foods and some that are not.”
Jackie says temperatures will likely be in the 70's and sunny during the day and a bit chilly at night. “When we visit the city from the beach we actually always look forward to an opportunity to wear our jeans because we never do on a daily basis. Our Tico friends are excited about joining in the celebration, and I have been warned ‘we better not mess up the turkey.’ Expats in Costa Rica are generally very organized when it comes to getting together for holidays, and Thanksgiving is no exception.”
And so the story goes for most of the North American expats we know. They’ll be gathering with expat and local friends and putting together as much tradition Thanksgiving food and trappings as they can find…and getting creative with the rest. That’s the hallmark of a successful expat—adaptability and creativity. Because no matter where you celebrate, good weather and good friends go together to make a memorable holiday.
So what are we doing for Thanksgiving? Well, just as there are many expats who carve out their own Thanksgiving holiday traditions where they live abroad, just as many are likely to be traveling back to the U.S. or Canada for the holidays. That’s our plan…we have a granddaughter who will be celebrating the third Thanksgiving of her life, and we’ll be there to help her discover the traditions.
We’ll be giving up the warm weather and camaraderie of our adopted Mexican home for a few weeks, but we’ll be making memories we can carry with us when we head back down south.
TAG LINE: This article comes to us courtesy of InternationalLiving.com, the world’s leading authority on how to live, work, invest, travel, and retire better overseas.
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