How to Include Colombian Culture in Thanksgiving 2025

Serve the best of both worlds at your Thanksgiving 2025 celebration and incorporate Colombian culture to make your partner feel at home.

When is Thanksgiving 2025, and how should you celebrate it if you’re dating a Colombian woman?

Thanksgiving 2025 is on Thursday, November 27. It’s most popularly celebrated in the United States, but if you’re planning to spend this holiday with your Colombian partner, you can successfully make her feel included by integrating elements of her heritage.

This involves serving traditional Colombian food, incorporating Colombian symbols into the decor, and allowing her to put a unique spin on certain aspects of the occasion. This integration of Colombian culture helps ease the stress of assimilation during the holidays, especially if she moved countries to be with you.

The Thanksgiving holiday, a time when families gather for a large dinner of turkey and stuffing, might be unfamiliar territory for a foreign partner, even if she has seen depictions in movies. Making her feel included is an important step toward the life you’re building together.

Integrating Colombian Culture Through Food

Arguably, the most obvious way to include your partner’s heritage in the festivities is through Colombian food.

Since food is a central part of the Thanksgiving holiday, adding traditional Colombian dishes to the spread ensures she sees a familiar piece of home on the table, offering a salve to homesickness.

Consider adding the following authentic Colombian dishes to your menu, enhancing your traditional Thanksgiving bounty:

Appetizers, Sides, and Condiments

• Aborrajados de plátano maduro (Colombian Aborrajados): These are deep-fried plantains stuffed with cheese. They are perfect as an appetizer or a side dish because they offer a combination of sweet and savory flavors.
• Suero: This milk-based condiment is similar to sour cream or yogurt and an excellent alternative to standard gravy or cranberry sauce.
• Hogao: This versatile sauce is made from tomatoes and long green onions. While traditionally used with rice, arepas, or meat, you can drizzle Hogao on mashed potatoes or even turkey.

Desserts and Beverages

• Buñuelo: While typically served around Christmas time, presenting these deep-fried dough fritters at Thanksgiving 2025 is great for welcoming a Colombian woman. They are made with small curds of white cheese and deep-fried until golden brown, typically served as balls.
• Colombian Coffee: Colombia is famed globally for its coffee. Serving authentic, high-quality Colombian coffee with dessert—rather than instant coffee marketed as Colombian—is a significant way to include your lady’s culture in the celebration.

Enjoy good Colombian food with your lady as you both recount what you’re grateful for this year. Source: Nicole Tarazona, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Incorporating Colombian Symbols and Decor

Beyond the culinary preparations, you can also include symbols of Colombian culture in your home decor to ensure she feels welcome.

• National Flower: Instead of traditional gourds or pumpkins for your table centerpiece, consider using the Cattleya trianae, the national flower of Colombia.
• Color Scheme: Use a tablecloth that is the same shade of yellow as the yellow found in the Colombian flag. This works perfectly because yellow is also an autumnal color, allowing you to reference both the season and her country without disrespecting the flag by using all its colors improperly.

Consult the Source: Open Communication

Remember that every Colombian woman is unique, and while incorporating food and symbols will help many, some will have distinct needs and wants.

To genuinely make her feel comfortable and happy on Thanksgiving 2025, the best approach is to simply ask her:

• "What can I do to help you enjoy this American holiday?"
• "What Colombian traditions would you like to share with my family this year?"

Open communication is the key to minimizing the stress that navigating an intercultural relationship and a new holiday can create. Making things easier for her is an honor when you’re in love with a Colombian woman.