Thanksgiving in the USA (1)

For some time, it has been on my bucket list that I should enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner in the USA. I’ve seen this event in so many American television shows and movies and it looks such a lot of fun, so I persuaded my good American friends Mike and Laura Grace to invite me over for the festive event. Little did I know at the time that my visit would come less than two weeks after Donald Trump would be elected the next president of the country and leader of the free world in the most surprising and astonishing electoral upset of modern times. This will be my ninth visit to the United States over a period of 46 years.

Thanksgiving is celebrated mainly in Canada and the United States but also in a small number of other countries including Granada, Liberia and St Lucia. In Canada, since 1957 it is held on the second Monday of October, while in the USA since 1942 it takes place on fourth Thursday of November (go figure!). In the United States, the festival is said to date back to 1621 when the Pilgrims gave thanks for a good harvest. Originally a religious event, Thanksgiving has long been a secular occasion which is at least as popular as Christmas.

There are all sorts of traditions associated with the event. Some cities hold Thanksgiving parades. Football (the American version) plays a major role. Since Ronald Reagan was President, the country’s leader pardons a turkey which is allowed to live rather than be eaten – unlike over 50 million other birds nationwide. Millions and millions of Americans travel back to the family home to celebrate the event with lots of traditional food. In short, the day is one for family, feasting and football.

I fly today – once I have finished my full English breakfast here at Heathrow  …


3 Comments

  • Andy

    Copy-edit alert!
    “Leader of the free world” should be in scare quotes. And possibly preceded by “so-called”.

    Enjoy your pumpkin pie.

  • Sue Crewe

    Hi Roger
    It’s always been my understanding that Abraham Lincoln started American Thanksgiving to celebrate the end of the Civil War. Canada’s Thanksgiving has always been a celebration of the harvest, hence the difference in dates. I would appreciate your input on this.
    Cheers, Sue

  • Roger Darlington

    The origin of the event in both nations was to do with the harvest, but the eventual determination of the date in the USA did owe something to the civil war – see here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

 




XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>