Mass Evacuation of New York City...otherwise known as Thanksgiving Holiday!

42.5million people are set to travel across the U.S today and tomorrow in order to return home or go on vacation over a holiday that is nearly bigger than Christmas, 'Thanksgiving'. Celebrated by families getting together, donating to City Harvest, making pumpkin pie, eating a Roast Turkey dinner and of course the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, this holiday has halted the spread of Christmas upon NYC and tomorrow welcomes the start of the Holiday season, with what seems like to us a Christmas dinner a month early!

We have been graciously invited to Maggie's family's house in New Jersey and we are very excited about joining an American family in their home for this massive event! Rumour has it more American's return home to spend more time with their families on Thanksgiving than they do on Christmas day!

Today, Thanksgiving Eve, we have made some 'British Brownies' for our dinner invitation tomorrow eve (Brownies with the Union Jack embellished in M&M's on top!) and we also ventured to Penn Station to buy our NJ Transit train tickets to the neighbouring state. What a queue and a hell of a lot of people were there all doing the same thing for travel tomorrow as well as people rushing to board the hundreds of trains leaving the city for the holiday. Uptown, the Macy's Thanksgiving Balloons are being blown up ready for the parade tomorrow and people are preparing their trimmings for the turkey...similar to xmas eve...except here a delicacy is Sweet potatoes topped with Marshmallows...! News broadcasts on the television are hour by hour informing people of traffic jams on the highways as well as delays (although not too many!) at the three airports. The broadcasts are also warning the public about the 'HOLIDAY HEART'... a warning to everyone not to over indulge on the lovely food and drink and that for anyone with pain in the heart, they suggest that they immediately visit ER (A+E) for a cardiac scan....lets hope they don't find too many people with just indigestion from the Sweet potato dish!! Adverts are also pushing the massive 'Black Friday Sales' which we will be popping to browse at after class on friday, many of the shops are shut tomorrow with some Friday sales starting at 4am and Macy's sale is starting at Midnight tomorrow...the city that never sleeps!

We will be getting up very early to secure a place on Central Park West to watch the massive parade, heading home to collect our Brownies and then getting the train into New Jersey (Our first inter-state travel!).

Happy Thanksgiving Eve everyone!
(P.s Rosina is hoping that she is going to promote this tradition in the UK when we get back...I'm not complaining, double xmas dinner, yes please!)