One by one the flowers fading in my garden
One by one the leaves are falling from the trees…”

-Woody Guthrie – “One By One”

While walking through the Parks yesterday, I noticed some of the leaves on the trees around Keble starting to turn and drop. Then while biking home last night a little bit late from work I noticed dusk creeping in earlier than what I’ve come to expect.This morning I certainly noticed the biting north wind in my face whilst cycling up the Thames path on my way to work. Autumn is gusting in to the south of England.

Autumn has always been my favorite season. Living in places like Florida, Georgia and Missouri – the coming of fall meant the end of sweltering summer days. Even in north Florida you start to feel a crispness in the morning air in October that’s a welcome change from the typical dank and stagnant August mornings. Autumn means college football and playoff baseball. Autumn means harvest festivals, county fairs and the start of school (yep, I was that kid). And autumn means Thanksgiving – the best of all American holidays.

Now, Autumn in Britain has slightly different connotations – particularly this year in which we had a damp cool summer. The relief that Autumn brings in the States is more like apprehension in Britain. Coming into my third Autumn in England I know what’s coming after the bright, blustery days of fall: the British winter. Four months of short days, long nights and cold, rainy gloom. My time in Britain is leading my love for Autumn’s rich decay to wane in favor of Spring’s gaudy rebirth.

There’s no college football or playoff baseball in autumnal Britain. Well, that’s not entirely accurate – if you’re an insomniac you can catch college football on the net and playoff baseball on Channel 5 in the wee hours of the morning. Autumn in Britain is football season, but it’s that unbearably dull sport that we call soccer. In my time here I’ve learned to love cricket and tolerate rugby, but English football makes my eyes roll back in my head.

There’s no Thanksgiving in Britain either. We do, unfortunately, have Halloween – a recent invasive holiday from the States, kind of like Valentine’s Day. Britain does have Guy Fawkes’ Day in early November – a holiday that as far as I can tell involves setting massive bonfires and shooting off rockets. While that is a holiday I can sink my teeth into, Thanksgiving for me is a little like college football – it’s an essential part of American culture. One that as an expatriate that I can’t do without, so I do my best to recreate it here in Blighty. I think we’ve done a pretty good job – with a little searching you can find all the trimmings of Thanksgiving. You have to move it around a bit to a weekend for maximum enjoyment. There are no bad NFL games and explaining Thanksgiving to people can be difficult (try this sometime – invoking pilgrims and Indians without sounding like your 3rd grade teacher). But at the end of the day, Thanksgiving is about eating and making merry with family or friends and that you can recreate anywhere in the world.

It’s bright and breezy outside with that lovely crispness in the air that makes if feel wonderful to inhale. There is that wonderful sound of leaves underfoot and the surprising bursts of fall color around any turn. Oxford is at is most magisterial in the Autumn and today I can just enjoy that.

Image Credits:

The first photo of Keble College is mine, but the nicer one of Christ Church comes from this site, which is definitely worth a visit.

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