Thanksgiving – when the
Americans celebrate!
One of the most popular holidays in the USA is the Thanksgiving Day
which is celebrated on the 4th Thursday in November. Since the states in
Europe do not have similar holiday, questions like ‘Why do the Americans
love that holiday?’ might be asked, so let me give you the general gist
what it means to the Americans.
Briefly about the history
Time changed the tradition
Celebrating the Thanksgiving Day has
naturally its long history. After a new
continent, later named America, was
discovered by Christopher Columbus, many
states wanted to colonize the free land. In
the 17th century the British people came
there and tried to live there. Unfortunately,
since Britain has different natural conditions,
the British people, who were called the
Pilgrims, did not know how to cope with them
and were not able to grow anything.
Fortunately for the Pilgrims, the Native
Americans
helped
them and
the
Pilgrims
could
survive
the winter
in the new
country.
The Native
Americans
taught
them the
process of
growing
maize (=corn) and haunting wild turkeys so
the Pilgrims decided to thank them with
dinner cooked from the ingredients they had
grown, and ‘thanks giving’ was brought into
being!
Nowadays the Thanksgiving Day is the best
opportunity for family gatherings because the
whole family prepares the dinner so
everybody gets somehow involved, and then
eats it together at one table. The dinner
usually contains roasted turkey with stuffing,
mashed potatoes with homemade turkey
gravy, glazed carrots, sweet potato casserole,
green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, fruit
salad, cornbread and dinner rolls, as a
dessert a pie might be served, such as
pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, apple pie,
mincemeat pie or pecan
pie. Drinks cannot be
forgotten
thus
hot
buttered
rum,
mulled
wine, sangria, apple cider,
spiked Chai tea, eggnog
or rum cider may appear
on the table. What a
feast!
Moreover, the majority of
people
decorate
their
houses
with
different
decorations for example
wreaths made of leaves,
fall flowers, pine cones or
dried berries might be
found hanging on the door of American
homes. An alternative way to thank the
family members is to make a thankful tree
where they can write messages of thanks on
paper leaf ornaments.