When the Pilgrims celebrated the inaugural Thanksgiving in 1621, they most likely had no inclination that, nearly four centuries later, residents of the country they were settling would utilize that first harvest as a reason to eat copious amounts of food, drink beer and watch football.
However, despite the differences in diet and fashion, the spirit behind Thanksgiving remains perhaps the most unadulterated of any holiday. That is, barring some disclosure about the shady dealings of the national turkey lobby.
While most of the other special times of the year have been in some sense either corrupted or outright created to further commercial enterprise, Thanksgiving has a special place in the heart of Americans due to its unique prerequisites.
Rather than anxiety-laden compulsory gift giving, the only requirement is to cook as much food as possible in order to spend as much time around the table talking with mouths full to friends and family before slipping into a coma.
Instead of having to watch the mock surprise as someone unwraps an unwanted present he or she now feels obligated to wear, the order of the day is to simply wake from slumber, push through the remaining turkey detritus, and watch John Madden announce yet another Detroit Lions loss. In other words, it's unequivocal bliss.
Thus, as a member of the expatriate community for six consecutive years, whenever Thanksgiving rolled around, I became homesick faster than a 5-year-old on his first day of kindergarten.
In November 2005, however, I was fortunate enough to be residing in New Zealand with Sun Valley native Emilie duPont and her cousin, Katie Deist, who thought it only appropriate to invoke the altruism held by America's original pioneers.
Just like Myles Standish and Squanto, though, they had the substantial hardship of not being able to walk to the local Safeway with shelves stocked with 15-pound turkeys, cans of cranberry sauce and all the other Thanksgiving dinner staples.
What's more, the girls decided to make it a truly arduous task by filling the guest list with a dozen bike messengers, who would spend that Thursday as any other, riding approximately 50 miles around the city, munching on the occasional candy bar while pedaling.
Picture a nature documentary on lions feasting on a freshly killed wildebeest and that will give some idea of how a pack of messengers goes about refueling.
With this in mind, any pretense of formality went down the disposal along with the insides of the specially ordered turkey and the guests, many of whom were still clad in Lycra shorts and bike shoes, were greeted by a smorgasbord of gorgeous vittles.
The dining room table was requisitioned after having deemed that it would serve best as ground zero for trays of meat, jugs of gravy and a vat full of mashed potatoes. The guests would just have to fend for themselves to find seating space.
And while the deep couches, lawn chairs and tattered La-Z-Boy led to some challenging eating arrangements, not a single complaint was issued. In fact, most conversation had been replaced by the clinking of mismatched silverware and the occasional guttural compliment to the chefs.
Sure, on a superficial level this could be viewed as merely a dinner party, but that evening, it truly felt as if there was actually some cultural significance, perhaps stemming from the previous eight months spent enduring pithy comments about George W. Bush's foreign policy and jokes inspired by "Team America: World Police."
Here was an opportunity to prove that our nation had a lot more to offer than revealing pictures of Paris Hilton and to quiet the naysayers by exemplifying the inherent generosity that's often hidden underneath negatively sensationalized press. After all, it's difficult to disparage a country with a mouth full of turkey.
When there came a moment's respite in the gastronomical deluge, the eclectic assortment of Kiwis, Britons and the lone Portuguese demonstrated that the essence of the holiday had indeed not been lost in translation, fully embracing the tradition of giving thanks.
As for myself, I was thankful that I could share this day surrounded by a group of friends that I might very well never see again once I flew back to my rightful side of the world.
Well, for that and the knowledge that the following day was Friday, thank God.
