'Although some of my UK friends have reacted to the whole idea with horror (associating the whole "baby shower" concept with the kind of cutesy frilly impression you get from the movies) I was completely won over.'

As I write this, we are nearing the end of the "Holiday Season" - a vague but politically correct period of time that, according to context, seems to stretch from Halloween to New Year, including in its path Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and any other festival, of any culture or religion, that happens to take place.

Other, more personal festivals and rites of passage are celebrated with equal gusto. I was lucky enough, after only five months in the US, to experience this for myself when the women at the pregnancy and parenthood group at church (nauseatingly titled "God, Mommy and Me", but they're a wonderful group) offered to throw me a baby shower.

Tell an American that the British don't do baby showers, and they will stare at you with incredulity. And although some of my UK friends have reacted to the whole idea with horror (associating the whole "baby shower" concept with the kind of cutesy frilly impression you get from the movies) I was completely won over.

Fun

Firstly, it was great fun. We played all sorts of games - including "guess the weight of the baby", "guess Helen's waist size" (how embarrassing) and "guess the baby's name". The latter provoked comment - we are almost unique, of the couples we've met over here, in not choosing to know the gender of the baby before birth. In the UK I came across people who almost seemed to consider the idea of finding out the gender before birth to be a moral outrage - here in the US it's nearly a moral outrage not to find out.

I've also heard about other baby shower games which, fortunately, we didn't try - blindfold "guess the flavour of the baby food" for example, and a revolting game that involves smearing melted candy bars on the inside of disposable nappies, and trying to guess the type of bar by smell.

Secondly, not to put too fine a point on it, the baby shower was tremendously helpful financially. Having had all the expense of moving to the US and starting up afresh on a single salary instead of the dual income we were used to, money has inevitably been a bit tight. But thanks to the overwhelming generosity of our new found friends, we now (hopefully) have all the baby equipment we'll need, at least to start us off.

Equipment

Not only did people give very generous presents, but they also passed on lots of larger second hand equipment. Admittedly, we now have more face flannels, socks and bibs than any one baby could possibly need, but we also have a fully kitted out, ready to go nursery. I imagine there are many couples that find this help equally useful when faced with the expense of preparing for a new baby.

To digress a little - nowhere do the differences between American and British English stand out so starkly as in the subject of baby care. I've had to learn a whole new language. The obvious one, of course is "diapers" instead of nappies, but there's also "pacifier" instead of dummy, "crib" instead of cot, "washcloth" instead of flannel, "onesie" instead of vest, "stroller" not pushchair, and most confusingly, the business end of a feeding bottle is referred to as a "nipple", not a teat. I brought home a "nipple and bottle cleaning brush", and in horror, my husband asked: "What are we supposed to do with that?"

I'm hoping to learn a lot of different things during my time living here in a different culture (and with a different language) to the one in which I was brought up. But I think one of the things I would most like to learn is how to emulate my American friends in their welcome and their generosity.