In a few weeks we will celebrate Thanksgiving in the USA.
What is that?
Why do we celebrate it?
And what are the most important words that I need in order to talk about it in German.
I’ll explain that in this video.
First, the most important question: Why do they celebrate Thanksgiving in America?
When the first settlers came from Europe and built their settlements in America,
they had a lot of problems.
They didn’t know how to cultivate corn.
Diseases were everywhere and everything was unfamiliar.
The Native Americans helped the settlers.
They celebrated a so called “Thankful Festival”.
They ate together and were very nice to each other.
That is what is written in books, but the real story is a bit more complicated.
The settlers and the Native Americans didn’t like each other.
They often fought with each other.
The settlers almost died of hunger.
In order to spare food supplies the settlers often fasted.
When they were allowed to eat again, they celebrated that.
The settlers thanked God that he had given them enough to each with the harvest.
The first time that there is a record of the word “Thanksgiving” was after one such day.
It was similar to the German harvest festival.
Obviously they didn’t eat a lot then.
They didn’t eat turkey.
There was no pumpkin pie.
When is Thanksgiving?
Every year on the fourth Thursday in November we celebrate Thanksgiving.
Earlier Americans celebrated it on the 3rd of October,
but Abraham Lincoln moved it to the last Thursday in November.
Between 1939 and 1941 a few states changed the holiday until Congress moved
the holiday to the fourth Thursday in November.
What is there to eat on Thanksgiving?
We eat.
We eat a lot.
Our portions are always oversized.
On Thanksgiving I eat almost the entire day, because there are no portions on Thanksgiving.
There is simply food… the entire day.
Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, bread, rolls, pumpkin pie
and many other dishes are the traditional foods.
With my family there are always lots of cookies and cakes/pies.
Chocolate (chip) cookies, peanut butter cookies, and oatmeal coconut ranger cookies.
My in-laws call the oatmeal coconut ranger cookies “family favorites”.
We have pumpkin pie, chocolate cake and sometimes coffee cake.
Many families bake pecan pie, but we don’t.
On one website that I found, they said that a cornucopia
(a bowl shaped like a horn) full of fruit, flowers, and ears of corn as a symbol of
abundance cannot be missing.
I have never seen a cornucopia at Thanksgiving.
They are symbolic for Thanksgiving, but we don’t have them at home.
We don’t use them for Thanksgiving.
These cornucopias are more like advertising tools or decorations.
What do people do for Thanksgiving?
I spend Thanksgiving with my in-laws.
The entire family cooks together.
They cook their own homemade noodles.
They smoke a turkey.
While we cook, the women and children watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV.
The men occasionally switch to watch football.
Before lunch we all say what we are thankful for.
I am thankful that we are all healthy.
I am thankful that there are no snakes in the winter.
After the meal we play board games or cards and converse.
Our favorite games are dominos, Sequence, Euchre, poker and the card game Golf.
The children play in on room and the adults talk with each other in another room.
At the end of the day we start planning Christmas.
Many stores offer a lot of sales.
In the last ten years the so-called “Black Friday” has become a bit more hectic.
This is the day after Thanksgiving on which many Americans buy their Christmas gifts.
This day signifies the unofficial beginning of the Christmas season.
In the past few years the Christmas time has started earlier and earlier.
Three days after Halloween I heard Christmas music in Walmart.
Now we have almost a month more of this terrible Christmas music.
Hopefully I won’t go crazy.
Jingle Bells. Jingle Bells.
Jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.
Please stop.