T-Day in the UAE, our second.

I can sum this up quickly: It didn’t really happen.

Both of us worked on Thursday. Same as last year. Same as the year before, in Hong Kong. (Three consecutive Novembers outside the U.S.)

So there’s that.

As I wrote the previous two Thanksgivings, it’s a holiday that doesn’t really exist outside the U.S. Funny, that it can be so intense there, and just unknown everywhere else.

Yes, Canada does Thanksgiving, but it was in October. So, anyone else who isn’t an American … not at all clear on the concept, or even aware of it. (Just as Americans don’t know what Guy Fawkes Day is, or Bastille Day or National Day here in the UAE.)

I might have forgotten completely that it was Thanksgiving … except that at the end of the shift one of the British guys got the early NFL game up on the little TV by his work station — because he had one of the players in the game on his fantasy NFL team.

I will concede that hearing the Lions play did make me think of Thanksgiving. For a moment.

We also realized Thanksgiving was coming,  from time to time, when other Yanks in the newsroom came by and asked “doing anything?” That’s when the “where did you find cranberry sauce?” and “where can I buy a meat thermometer?” questions start coming up.

Anyway, we’re going to take a shot at a day-after Thanksgiving event, someplace south of town where a bunch of Yanks are going to gather. Just happy to be invited because we know friends of the people who are staging it …

I will get around to that tomorrow. Hope T-Day went well for the rest of you, Over There.