AIBU to think my American neighbour is taking this too far?

[MelaniaLovesLemon]

She’s already invited us to Thanksgiving (yes, in September) and has given me a little to-do list...
Bring a casserole, make miniature turkeys out of whole walnuts(?), and have something prepared to say about what we’re thankful for, and I need to bring my own chair. She’s quirky, loud and brash with a weird husband, and has a habit of turning up unannounced with crazy schemes.

Recently she came for an aperitif in our cute garden, and practically inhaled the entire tin of prawn cocktail Pringles that I was saving for my DS and then simply helped herself to another glass of wine without asking, apparently she wants that wine for the dinner?

Another time she invited me round at 9am to taste test three different types of stuffing, for the Thanksgiving. I could not possibly eat all that at 9am!

I don’t know if I’m being rude thinking this is all a bit much?

She sounds like fun to me and a good neighbour. Sounds like she's trying to make friends OP? We had some American neighbours when I was growing up and it was really interesting finding out about their culture and holidays and the Halloween parties were epic

“accidentally” eh? Totally believe you

Sorry, forgot to quote @PurpleThistle7!

It sounds like she's guilty of SWA - socialis(z)ing while American. Can't have that in the UK. Flush them all out now.

If anyone is buying a pipe of Pringles, make sure you get paprika flavour. It’s the dog’s

How is her husband "weird"? 🤔

For the OP, they're sort of like gougères in a tube!

As someone who moved to a different country and tried very hard to make connections and find some friends some of these responses make me really sad.

She's reaching out and being friendly. Who knows how many friends she has here and how she's managing being in a new country?

Because we're BRITISH 🇬🇧

I like Americans - I like their often warm and inclusive attitude. I lived there for a year as a teenager and was graciously welcomed into many homes. I try and emulate that when I host people now. Anyone’s welcome. I love meals where people bring different things and everyone helps out. I get it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I think it’s nice.

Absolutely right @Wallaw1 . It was aimed at all the Brits who love to sneer at Americans’ collective sweet tooth. But don’t knock it till you’ve tried it - I think maple in the turkey glaze is wonderful.

I also vacillate between Nigella’s cranberry sauce and a recipe from the NYTimes, though will give Delia’s a gander this year. She has a really good straightforward stuffing recipe in her Christmas book that is very nice, though I usually go for Alison Roman’s, again from the NYTimes.

I'm always with salt and vinegar!

Cranberry chutney is very good. I have never made it, but I often buy it during the holidays.

As other posters have mentioned, there are many regional and cultural differences in what people serve for Christmas, but Thanksgiving is often referred to in the US as Turkey Day for a reason. There are some regional variations that are important, though. One is the dressing (it's dressing if cooked outside the bird; stuffing if cooked inside). In the South, it's cornbread dressing, which when done well, is food of the gods. I married a Yankee, however, so every year, we also have some sort of concoction of bread, onions, and apples that he makes from his mother's recipe that he calls stuffing, even though it's also cooked outside the bird.

Sigh, I know. It's about the religious separatists who sailed on the Mayflower surviving (just) their first winter.

@GodSavetheJean I think you're confusing me with someone else. At no point have I said anything about Thanksgiving being 'rammed down anyone's throat'.

I posted once about the fact I was once invited to a Thanksgiving meal in Baltimore and how very similar it was to Christmas lunches in England that I have been invited to, and the above post that you quoted.

I'm sorry if my opinion of the tasteless mass produced cranberry sauce in a tin offended you but it was indeed watery and tasteless and seemed to be complete devoid of actual cranberries.

And no, at no point did I find the Thanksgiving meal I was invited to 'hard'.

If putting on a show means only offering 1 glass (even if it is champagne or sancere) and complaining when people eat the Pringles then it’s a pretty poor show! Try and be less hyacinth bucket and a bit more friendly and fun? Your friend wants you to join her family for one of her most important celebrations of the year - either join with a glad heart or politely decline. Ps - smoked salmon is not a show piece - it’s 2025 not 1972. We had it for tea last night, not in a cute garden either, just at the table with potatoes and veg! Good source of protein and my kids love it.

I want to know what the rest of the show entails and still BEYOND intrigued by the ‘cute garden’ .
im more interested in the OP than the ‘brash American’

Genuine question, I could just google but here is as good a place as any.
do American people have Christmas dinner as well as thanksgiving?
is one more important, bigger, more work than the other?
do people do gifts at thanksgiving?
I ask because I’ve often wondered

I have disabilities and struggle with anything outside of the every day routine, so Christmas for me is a massive upheaval which is stressful in the buildup no matter how much I pare it down, and recovery afterwards is long and hard for me.
i could not imagine having to do both thanksgiving AND Christmas so close together.
how do people manage?! Especially working folk?

Well, I really enjoy special meals that someone else is cooking and bonus points if it's a bit 'exotic' to my own cultural experience. I'm actually quite envious of the OP's invitation to a Thanksgiving meal - it sounds lovely, even if the 'going round the table saying what you're thankful for' bit is a tiny bit cringe for us Brits. I'm all in favour of pointless festive crafting and would probably enjoy making silly turkeys from walnuts.

So - OP, if you don't want to go, can I go instead?

It just doesn't taste the same if it doesn't have can ridges in it 😂

And yes I'd compare it to a tin/box/whatever of Bird's custard here. People can and do make homemade custard, but everyone has fond memories of this other thing.

I usually serve homemade cranberry sauce and keep the canned stuff for sandwiches later, but I've 'served' the can shaped mass on a fancy serving dish here more than a few times just for my own amusement.

Haven't rtft beyond p6 but to anyone American: OP seems to have hit a rich seam of grumpy fuckers on this thread, not all British people are this joyless and unfriendly I promise. I'm embarrassed quite frankly! Thanksgiving invitation from gregarious slightly overbearing neighbour sounds like immense fun if you don't have a bottle of sancerre stick up your arse.

Some of this will vary by household or region of the country, but more people celebrate Thanksgiving so it's often the bigger meal event. Here in the UK, I know a LOT of people who are not Christian but they have a Christmas meal event. I feel like that group of people would be going all in on Thanksgiving in the USA, and leaving Christmas, if they were there.

There's no gifts. People often bring a dish. Sometimes they're tasked with a specific type of dish (bring an app, or vegetable side, or a pie for dessert) just so the host doesn't end up with 5 green bean casseroles.

Here in the UK, I go all out on Thanksgiving dinner, and Christmas is more fancy breakfast and posh-ish party foods throughout the day. There's so much else happening at Christmas, I'd rather not spend my day making a roast meal (which no one else in the house loves anyway!) I used to, but now I just make sure I buy in all the nice foods we don't usually have. And DS loves Christmas waffles.

My personal experience in the US is that Christmas meal is often a different meat to turkey. Southerners quite like a honey roast ham at Christmas.

People do not give gifts at Thanksgiving. It's one of the reasons that it's my favorite holiday. It's about food, and as we say here in the South, fellowship.

For people who celebrate Christmas, yes, there is a Christmas dinner about 30 days after Thanksgiving. The extent to which the Christmas dinner is elaborate varies from person to person and family to family. In my family, we tend to have a much bigger Thanksgiving, with extended family and friends. Christmas is a smaller celebration for us, usually with just immediate family. And no turkey. We usually have ham or roast beef for Christmas dinner.

In my family we take turns hosting Thanksgiving dinner. I have three siblings as does DH and two adult children, so we don't have the bulk of the responsibility every year. Also if we travel for a holiday, it will be Thanksgiving. We almost always have Christmas dinner at home.

Yes. I'm Jewish, and while a lot of British Jews would celebrate Christmas or at least have a big lunch, far fewer American Jews do (unless they're married to a Christian, have Christian family etc). In the US the joke is that we go for Chinese food and to the cinema on Christmas Day.

Christmas is still a big deal here but it's much more varied.

Yes! We're the same, husband is British/Christian and I'm American/Jewish. The more the merrier!