welcome back I'm Jenna and this is learn academic English on this channel I teach intermediate and
advanced level lessons for English Learners who want to take their language to the next level I
focus on academic skills that can help you improve your English for work or school in today's video
I'm going to give you an American culture lesson this lesson is going to help you to understand
more about American culture this is especially useful if you're living in the United States or
visiting here or if you just want to improve your knowledge about American culture so in
today's video I'm going to talk briefly about how we celebrate Thanksgiving and I'll show you a lot
of pictures to help you understand more before we get into that I would like to remind you to please
give this video a like if you find it helpful leave a comment and subscribe if you want more
lessons like this one and check out my American culture playlist with more videos all about how
we celebrate holidays and other things in the United States I'll leave a link to that below
so first when is Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday in November
So This falls on a different date every year but it's always the fourth Thursday in November
this is part of an important fall holiday season that includes Halloween at the end of
October Thanksgiving at the end of November and then Christmas and Hanukkah and other important
holidays that come at the end of December Thanksgiving is a Federal holiday which means
that we have the day off work and government offices and stores and other businesses are
usually closed and for most Americans Thanksgiving is the second most important holiday of the year
for some Americans they even consider it to be the most important day of the year it's really
a day that is focused on two things family and good food so let's talk briefly about how we
prepare for this holiday some holidays we spend a lot of time preparing maybe a few weeks but
for Thanksgiving we don't spend that much time preparing you're not going to notice a lot of
Thanksgiving decorations now this holiday comes in the fall the leaves are changing their color
on the trees there's a lot of fall feeling in the air and so you will notice that we have
fall decorations but they're not specifically for Thanksgiving usually and these decorations
are part of a seasonal feeling that extends from October through November mostly the colors brown
orange and yellow because they match the colors that we see on the trees at this time of year
and then another thing that's important to know about Thanksgiving is that we don't give people
gifts and we don't send cards for Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is really just about family and so
we will wish our family Happy Thanksgiving but beyond that we don't do a lot of other
things to celebrate with other people because Thanksgiving is on a Thursday we have Thursday
and Friday off of work so it's a long weekend but a lot of people will take the whole week of
Thanksgiving off especially if they have to travel to visit family a lot of Americans will travel to
a relative's house to stay there for Thanksgiving other Americans choose to stay home and invite
people to come to their home for the Thanksgiving meal next it's Thanksgiving Day then we usually do
three things on Thanksgiving Day in the morning we relax maybe we start preparing the food if
we are doing the cooking and there is a parade on TV it's called the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and
it's been around for almost 100 years it takes place in New York City and there's a lot of fun
things you can see at this parade and so we often watch this on TV then we have our meal in the
late afternoon so it's a meal that usually happens between lunch and dinner time maybe we eat at like
three or four pm and at this meal we often share what we are grateful for Thanksgiving is a day
for thinking about what we are thankful for for gratitude often we will share we will go around
the table and everyone will say I'm thankful for my health this year and of course we eat now the
Thanksgiving meal has a few essential items one is a large roasted turkey that is served with three
things the turkey is served with gravy which is a sauce that's made from the juices of the meat it's
salty and we put it on top of the meat cranberry sauce now cranberries are a funny fruit that you
probably don't know but this is a cranberry it's a small red fruit it's very hard and we don't
eat it like this we always cook it it's very tart and the flavor of this tart cranberry sauce goes
really well with the meat and so usually we'll take a bag of these cranberries and we will cook
them until it becomes a kind of sauce and then in addition to the turkey with the gravy and
cranberry sauce we have stuffing and stuffing is chopped up pieces of bread with onions and
celery and other seasonings that's cooked inside the turkey and it absorbs the juices from the meat
and we always have stuffing with our turkey gravy and cranberry sauce okay then we have our side
dishes those always include sweet potatoes sweet potatoes are a fall vegetable that we like to eat
at this time of year usually we also have regular potatoes that can be served mashed and a green
vegetable green beans a green salad something like that and rolls some kind of hot bread
and of course pie pie is the very traditional Thanksgiving dessert and usually these pies
are made with some kind of ingredient that is available at this time of year apples
pumpkin pecan those are the three traditional types of pies that we have on Thanksgiving
after the meal is finished we relax with uh maybe we watch TV with our family maybe we play a game
maybe we go for a walk maybe we just sit and talk but the rest of the day is for relaxing
okay then what about the rest of the weekend because we have
um usually four days off well in the past people started a new tradition which is to do a lot of
Christmas shopping or holiday shopping on the day after Thanksgiving and this is because we
have the day off from work it's a good time to start our holiday shopping and this is
shopping that we do to buy gifts for Christmas or another holiday that we celebrate in December
now we call this day Black Friday and this is a day when most stores have really huge sales
you know 50 off TVs and computers and things like that for a really low price I never go
shopping on this day I think it's too crowded and I don't enjoy that atmosphere and nowadays it's
much easier to shop online but you will notice a lot of Black Friday sales on that day and even a
few days before now in order to balance out that crazy shopping materialistic Vibe of Black Friday
we have a couple of newer Traditions one of them is called small business Saturday so this is the
day after Black Friday and this is a day when people try to support their small businesses in
their Community again this is a way of balancing that big shopping that people might do online or
at Big stores and instead thinking about how we can buy gifts from small local shops and we have
what's called giving Tuesday which happens the following week on Tuesday and this is a day when
we try to give to Charities and again as a way of balancing all that shopping that we do instead
thinking about how we can help others by giving to charity and it's a time that we just like to
spend with family the one last thing that we like to do on this weekend is to start preparing our
decorations for the upcoming winter holidays and for most people that's Christmas so Christmas
Comes one month after Thanksgiving but often we start decorating on the Thanksgiving weekend
because again we have time off we have time to get that decorating done so you will notice a lot of
Americans going out to buy their Christmas tree or putting the Christmas lights on the
outside of their house after Thanksgiving in fact that's what my family and I do almost every year
so that's basically what we do on Thanksgiving as I mentioned before it is a really important
holiday for most Americans we enjoy this holiday a lot because it's just about slowing down enjoying
a really nice traditional meal so I hope you enjoyed this little look at Thanksgiving in the
United States please let me know if you have questions or let me know if you've celebrated
this holiday before I hope to see you back here soon take care and Happy Thanksgiving