Thanksgiving: a displaced Brit writes…

When I first heard about this "Thanksgiving" thing, I thought it sounded like a great idea.

We Brits spend a ridiculous amount of time each day giving thanks to strangers - we say thanks to people who hold doors for us, thanks to people who stop their cars to let us cross the road, thanks to waitresses when they give us our bill; even thanks again when we hand over the money to pay. But apparently you Americans - innovative people that you are - had found a way to streamline the process.

Rather than waste hours each day expressing gratitude, you had decided to compress all of your thank-yous into one annual 24-hour-period of uninterrupted Thanks Giving. Get all that politeness out of the way in one go. An inspired solution, I though, and one we should copy back home. Hell, we should have a 'sorry' day too - we'd reclaim weeks of time.

But apparently I'd got the wrong end of the stick. Having consulted Wikipedia, it turns out that today is not about mundane expression of gratitude, but rather about big-ticket Thank-yous. For friends, family, a baby's laugh, spreadable cheese. Stuff that really makes it a joy to be alive, and living in the home of the brave.

In just under an hour, I'm heading out to my first ever Thanksgiving dinner; I gather there will be turkey involved, and sweet potatoes - whatever they might be. And, despite my British cynicism, I'm very excited. But before I go, given that today's celebrations began with some Brits moving to the USA and giving thanks for its awesomeness, I thought it might be appropriate to share five things - technological and otherwise - that make me... well.. thankful that a few months ago I too decided to make America my new home.

Here goes...