Thanksgiving in Oxford.

If you find one, please let me know.

I've never heard of one.

We have a couple of contributors here who live in or near Oxford - perhaps one or both know of places that I don't.

Thanksgiving is not a British holiday; most turkeys here are eaten at Christmas.

Is he military? Maybe on base at Brize Norton?

Thanksgiving, what's that?
As a Brit, I can say I've heard of it, as some kind of US holiday, but I've no idea what or when it is.

If you do find a restaurant in Oxford which serves American Thanksgiving dinner (and why would that be I ask) then i demand the same for Canadian Thanksgiving which is in October.

The Plymouth pilgrims left England so they could have their first Thanksgiving in America. At some point, somebody in America returned with some tobacco but no turkeys or cranberry sauce . . . or pumpkin pie!

I am struggling to think of one in an open restaurant. Many colleges have them for their students, and there is one up at the airbase at Croughton. The Randolph Hotel used to have them years ago but there is no sign of anything on the site this year. The American restaurants in Oxford that I know of in Oxford are mostly burger or BBQ.

If you have access to a good kitchen, turkeys are available in the supermarkets (expensive, and frozen because the fresh ones won't be in the stores until close to Christmas), Waitrose supermarkets sell Libby pumpkin, Partridges in Sloane Square in London sells various American foods including Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix and Durkee french fried onions for "those green beans", and many stores carry marshmallows and sweet potatoes.

So you can have a home cooked Thanksgiving if you'd like.

As to the question of why a restaurant in a non-U.S. or non-Canadian country would offer a Thanksgiving meal: it's a money-maker. Here in Paris there are a few places that offer up a Thanksgiving with all the trimmings. Given the large expat and student community, there's a market here of people who are willing to pay to celebrate.

It could be, also, that a restaurant might have American ownership and the owners might just enjoy the idea of making their spot a home away from home for one of our most important holidays.

As Nigel points out as this is not a British holiday, outside the main population areas it might be difficult to find.

However I have a suggestion. Years ago in the paper I read at the time was a writer who had to work over Christmas in Saudi Arabia. Of course nowhere had the traditional UK Christmas dinner, but although agnostic/atheist the writer wanted to celebrate.

They went to Pizza Hut, and in their opinion had the best Christmas dinner they had ever had. Intimate, knowing, private (well them and the staff from the Philippines who were also nominally from Christian-majority countries). My suggestion is enjoy the holiday with the best meal available on the day whether or not it is US Thanksgiving styles foods.

You can enjoy Thanksgiving/Christmas etc with a Carbonara if the company is right.

Thank you all for your input. Purchasing a frozen turkey from the supermarket is the way we will go. Our dinner should be fun, my sons British friends, totally unfamiliar with the holiday will be joining us for dinner.