Thanksgiving
by uber
I think I should start celebrating Thanksgiving. From my distant view, it’s a holiday very similar to Christmas, but without the gift-giving. It is also like Christmas in that it is primarily a non-religious ceremony. There is an element of prayer in the traditional form, but mainly it’s about family and food. Food is what makes me really want to celebrate this American holiday.
It really comes down to the fact that Thanksgiving makes a great starting gun for Christmas. In Ireland, there’s a sort of uneasy slump into Christmas, which is pulled further and further back each year by the shops. I am a big fan of Christmas, particularly I love Turkey dinners, but I often worry that I will start too early and get sick of them by the 25th. Thanksgiving is the ideal chance to get a decent meal out of the way early, so I can pick through the remaining weeks in a leisurely fashion, safe in the knowledge that I have started and can walk the race-track rather than feeling I need to run from a late start.
Comments
Thanksgiving is such a good idea – I’m annoyed, I should have tried to do something. Ah well, there’s always next year! Love the new look site btw! ;-)
We’ll just have to do it next year. Giant meal of turkey and Lemon Slices and Caramel Slices and Bannoffee and more!
I think it could be great.
I think most people who celebrate Thanksgiving would disagree with you that Christmas is a non-religious holiday. ;)
For most, Thanksgiving is mandatory family time right smack up against the already family-filled Christmas season. You don’t have to give gifts, but you do have to show up (if you don’t believe me, look up travel stats for Thanksgiving weekend, the one time of year I refuse to go to the airport) and often you have to cook. There is usually an inordinate amount of American football, whether you like it or not.
Additionally, thinking of Thanksgiving as the beginning of Christmas makes it that much more offensive when the shops put out their Christmas stuff the day after Hallowe’en. It’s true the biggest shopping day of the year is the day after Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t stop the shops from doing the best they can beforehand.
Hehe I am sure that the majority of people who celebrate Thanksgiving would have plenty of disagreement with me ;)
I guess the clarification is that they are not liturgically significant holidays, unlike Easter, but most Thanksgivers would probably call that papism and pitchfork me.
I’ve actually come to quite like American Football, I think it requires context, and that context is a bar full of supporters (especially in Vegas, though avoid the triple jaegermeisters).
I am 100% behind you on the Hallowe’en thing. I am even more annoyed by Hallowe’en being decorated for in September. Those people go on my list, with people who don’t know the difference between ‘loose’ and ‘lose’, and people who thing ‘enormity’ means a big.