While the Thanksgiving Day holiday is celebrated primarily by Americans and Canadians, it has spilled over into other countries and societies and I believe this has happened due to the prolonged contact with those countries. I can’t be sure that’s exactly the reason why other cultures celebrate Thanksgiving Day — I consider it an educated guess. Regardless, what started out as a religious holiday is now considered a secular holiday as well.
The Thanksgiving Day Turkey
The original turkey for Thanksgiving Day was actually any bird that could be hunted and eaten. I’m referring to, of course, the first Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth Plantation (before that part of the now current American continent became part of the US) in 1621.
Somewhere along our historical path, the turkey came to prominence as the fowl of choice for eating on Thanksgiving Day (and Christmas Day as well). I don’t know about other societies, but most Americans will try to find the biggest turkey they can cook in a conventional oven.
In 2006, my wife and I looked for a large turkey for our Thanksgiving Day dinner. The largest turkey we could find back then was barely larger than a leghorn chicken. It didn’t take long to cook and the three of us (me, my wife and my son) consumed everything but the bones. Everything I consider edible, that is.
Other Fixings
I grew up in a large family and our Thanksgiving Day meals were always more than enough to feed 11 or more people at once. Even when the family grew (in-laws) to more than double that size, there was always enough and usually a lot of leftovers.
Two huge turkeys were usually the center of attention but we had pumpkin and pecan pies, sweet potatoes and yams (there’s a difference), cranberry sauce, cornbread, hams, fruit salad and all kinds of things I can’t seem to remember right now, with huge helpings of giblet gravy to go on top of whatever it went on top of along with the stuffing from the turkeys.
As we got older (and time approached closer to the current day), some of the Thanksgiving Day items could be bought already prepared from local markets (like pies). The best dishes, however, were always homemade.
Thanksgiving Day 2009
2009 was the first year after 2006 in which we celebrated Thanksgiving Day and we haven’t celebrated it since. My wife was in the US for it every other year and I won’t celebrate it here unless she’s at home.
Strange as it may seem, my wife is the one who insisted on having a Thanksgiving Day dinner in both 2006 and 2009. It was only strange to me, considering my wife is Filipino, until I realized one glaring fact I overlooked until I thought about for more than a few minutes. My wife moved to the US when she was only 23 and she’s now 51, which means she has spent more time living in the US than she has in the Philippines. Perhaps you could consider her a Filipino-American in the truest meaning of the term since she acts more American than I do in a lot of ways.
Thanksgiving Day 2012
I don’t know how Thanksgiving Day will turn out this year because I’ll be in the US this time around, visiting with my older son’s family (including my grandson). My wife is already there and she said we’d have plenty of everything I like on both Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
Sharing the Wealth
One of the unfortunate side effects of cooking a big Thanksgiving Day dinner will be that all of my in-laws will come out of the woodwork, looking for a piece of the action. I know this to be true because it has happened before and not just with turkeys. Whenever my wife cooked her famous chicken enchiladas, beef tostadas, American-style spaghetti (don’t ask about the difference), and other foods in which the delicious odors tended to waft over our compound, we had difficulty keeping people away.
The way they behave, you would think my in-laws have never eaten real food before. I don’t mind sharing as long as we remember to set aside enough for ourselves to make the whole holiday ordeal worthwhile. The only part that irritates me is when I know they’ve already eaten and I haven’t and they’re more than willing to take more than their fair share. It just isn’t going to happen that way ever again or in other words, it’ll happen over my dead body. When I’m hungry for some turkey, nobody had better get in my way and that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Americans celebrate Thanksgiving Day on the 4th Thursday of November each year (which happens to fall on the same day as my birthday every so often, but not again until 2013). Regardless of how far away or close it is to my birthday, I usually just celebrate my birthday at the same time (but only when I celebrate it). As I get older (and past my prime), I don’t find personal days very important to me anymore.
[Originally published in November, 2009 and updated for November, 2012]
http://www.allrecipes.com tons of recipes
Roast turkey & gravy
sage stuffing
candied sweet potatoes
mashed potatoes
green bean casserole
carrots & broccoli
green salad
cranberry sauce
fresh yeast rolls
relish tray (sweet pickles, olives)
fruit salad
pumpkin pie
apple pie
wow I have to wait 4 months for this?
Acai Force Max
no one is practicing the tradition: especially the youth they are very far away from traditions : (
Have a safe and happy birthday ( and Thanksgiving! )
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I’m amazed. Someone who actually read through to the last paragraph! :-)
Cold turkey sandwiches! Hmmmm hmmmm…. I am already drooling right now. Thanksgiving is only like 3 weeks from now but I could already smell and taste the turkey already. Oh boy!
Happy Birthday in advance. I also celebrate (or the lack of it) my birthday on November. :)
You just celebrated your birthday, so Happy Birthday and Happy Thanksgiving also!
Sometimes, as much as I want to enjoy my mom’s cooking every Christmas, SOME of my relatives will find a way to sneak in at the last minute and eat all of it… when they’re not even invited! (because we don’t like ‘some’ relatives of ours) >.<
I haven’t celebrated my birthday yet. It’s two days after Thanksgiving Day (the 28th).
Intresting article… thanks for sharing I myself I love Thanksgiving
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I hope you have a great thanksgiving dinner. I am looking forward to it. Is there something similar to Thanksgiving in Philippines?
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Thanksgiving is such a great thing to celebrate the way the founding fsthers meant it to be celebrated.
I miss Thanksgiving so much. Haven’t had a real one in 16 years. This year I decided to simply celebrate Thanksgiving with my boys one day in July. It was kind of funny. But I just missed it so much I had to do something.
Turkeys here in Brazil can get pretty large but they can also get expensive. So I settled for having Brazilian food and American decorations- LOL.
Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving :-)
Eren
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Hmm.. I’m German and still have sweet memories of the first Thanksgiving Dinner I enjoyed in the states with my fellow students. It’s such a great holiday and you AMericans definately know how to celebrate in style.
Although it seems such like an American tradition we have taken on it because we see it as a day where families get together and enjoy a great meal and have a great time.
I think Thanksgiving should only be celebrated Americans and Canadians. It is ridiculous to hear about celebrating it in other countries. Regardless, I had no idea that Thanksgiving was celebrated in the Philippines.
I agree. I am a Philippine-born American citizen. For years I never celebrated thanksgiving while in the US. Only recently did I start celebrated it because I was married into an American family. I cannot damn believe thanksgiving is celebrated in the Philippines on the same American thanksgiving holiday.
Filipino traditions also celebrate a thanksgiving for all the blessings in each year and the progress of the country.
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In the country we’re currently living, people do not celebrate Thanksgiving and the worst thing here is finding turkey in the local market is very difficult.
I think that it is difficult for us to share what we have come to think of as our holiday with other cultures. As a worldwideair ambulance company we had a Thanksgiving dinner in our office in Ireland with a mixture of US ex-pats and locals. The ex-pats enjoyed it tremendously and it brought a sense of closeness and connection. While the locals just didn’t quite get it.