All Ze Details: Thanksgiving Abroad

How To Create A Successful Thanksgiving Abroad

We moved from Texas to Australia during November and wanted to participate in Thanksgiving abroad. Not only make it feel more like home half way around the world, but to share our special holiday tradition.

It was a challenge baking everything and trying to make everything taste the same that it did at home - with what ingredients we had. Some things may taste a little "off" but here were some ingredients & things to help you on your way to a successful American Thanksgiving abroad. These are the ingredients we use every year in Australia, and if you become incredibly desperate there is an American website to order your American food from - for a pretty penny, of course.

I started creating the feel for our Thanksgiving by sourcing out gourds, butternut squash, and pumpkins to decorate the table. I found these at our local Woolworths Supermarket. You can also source these at your local farmers' markets. Coles Supermarket also had a good selection of fall produce for the table. Both Coles & Woolies are available to deliver groceries to your home, which made it incredibly helpful for us for Thanksgiving. To make it EXTRA helpful Coles Supermarket delivers FREE on Wednesdays, just make sure to put in your order a week in advance. I always missed free delivery because the slots were always taken - but if you order far enough in advance it's a pretty good deal for free delivery. And FREE delivery for your first order with Coles when you sign up on their website for delivery.

Helpful hint: If you have any relatives living abroad in Australia you can help out and send something special online for Thanksgiving from Coles or Woolies by ordering a few groceries, desserts, or even flowers online - they'll deliver it direct to their home for Thanksgiving. It's always a very special feeling to receive something from family when you're abroad - like having something from home. Just an idea! Super easy to do anything with technology these days!

For drinks I opted for plastic wear from the grocery store for iced-tea and iced-water plastic cups. These silver rimmed champagne flutes are plastic and easy to recycle after dinner. I found these at Spotlight, which is the equivalent to our Hobby Lobby in Texas. I found them on sale in the party section and they were no more than $5 for the pack.

For the table arrangement I found mercury glass candles, small candle holders, and mixed it in with the butternut squash. I love mercury glass - it's all over my home so I already had these. I found the small, inexpensive white candle holders (cafe style candles) at Bed Bath N' Table. The top photo is different candle holders available at Bed Bath N' Table; they had a good mix of various candle holders to choose from - all were under $4 and you can use them for practically anything after Thanksgiving has come-and-gone.

Turkey was easy to find, and luckily it fit in our little oven. You can opt to also have this delivered with your groceries along with the right cooking appliances. If you're having trouble finding something to cook your turkey in we just used a typical foil pan. If you're looking for something fancy opt for cooking appliances at MYER.

I love candied yams. What is Thanksgiving without candied yams? I found Rocky Mountain Marshmallows at the grocery store (imported from the USA, and I've never heard of them - haha, but they worked). Just add the brown sugar & you're set. Just don't tell your Aussie friends how much sugar is in it.

So, for me it was a struggle trying to find just the right ingredients to get that specific taste of homemade banana pudding. This is the closest I could get - Foster Clarks custard cups in Vanilla, and Tiny Teddy & Moo Milky Vanilla cookies. It turned out okay, of course it did not taste like home - but it turned out pretty good.

I found the plastic dessert cups from Spotlight as well. And filled the leftover cups with "Cup-O-Dirt" chocolate desserts which is something our family usually makes for Halloween and Thanksgiving.

At home, each person from our family is in charge of a dish. So to carry on the tradition we had each of our friends bring their own traditional dish from their family - it was nice to try something new and to see what everyone's tradition was. This Thanksgiving I was thankful for all of the new things we had the opportunity to try and thankful for our Australian friends that feel like family so far away from home.

For napkins I just cut flowers and placed them on each place setting, I spread out the candles from Bed Bath N' Table and placed the turkey in the middle. We had to hire chairs for the day from an events boutique but it was inexpensive. Quite comical shoving the chairs into our small car because the delivery fee for the chairs was OUTRAGEOUS. We borrowed the trestle tables from a very sweet friend. My tablecloth were blankets that I already had.

What recipes do you stick to abroad that taste most like home? What new traditions have you picked up abroad? If you have any questions about any other advice for Thanksgiving abroad please comment below. Happy Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my All Ze Details readers!

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Some of my favourite dishes, and candles I use for the home to help set your ideal Thanksgiving setting are all listed below. All items listed below are available to ship to USA, UK, and Australia. Click on the desired items below for product info. I love these beautiful place settings and the smells of these candles especially for holiday tablescapes. They all make me feel more at home.

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DISHES FOR ZE TABLE