www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall American Thanksgiving

My dear American Friends,

O.K., I'm pleading the fifth here!

Tell me about what you do on your Thanksgiving.

You have a four-day weekend, correct?

Is Thanksgiving the Thursday alone? And then you have three days to recover? What's the story?

And I understand from my American uncle that it is very, very important as a holiday.

Your President thought so yesterday . . .

We Canucks don't really celebrate our Thanksgiving, the second Monday of October, in the same way, I don't believe.

It is a three-day weekend and Thanksgiving could be either Sunday or Monday, depending on whether you're religious or not.

Some of us fly a turkey flag for Thanksgiving.

So when you've done with your left-over turkey sandwiches today, please do enlighten some of your interested neighbours to the north.

Alex

Alex,

Thanksgiving Day is pretty big down hear, I would say number three after Christmas and Pascha. The mandatory Turkey dinner is followed by a tritophan induced catatonic state infront of the TV watching the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys hosted football games. Officially only Thursday is the holiday but it is considered a weekend affair. Many, but not everyone, have Friday off, and it is the first day of the Christmas shopping season and the stores are absolutely nuts, opening at 6:00 AM. People are usually lined up at the door for limited one to two hour opening specials.

On the spiritual side Liturgy is often offered Thanksgiving Day and both the Latin and Byzantine Churches (at least the Pittsburgh Metropolia) have a proper Liturgy for the day.

In Christ,
Fr. Deacon Lance

Alex

Thanksgiving is the number 1 travel day in the US. The night before is the number 1 bar night. And the day after is the number 1 shopping day. Thanksgiving dinner itself is probably best characterised by the big 6, 1.Turkey 2.Stuffing (made countless ways) 3.Sweet Potatoes 4.Mashed Potatoes 5.Cranberry Sauce 6.Pumpkin Pie. Of course it's not limited it to that alone, but those tend to be the staples.

Almost every denomination imaginable has a service, but I'd guess attendance is probably best on the East Coast, where football doesn't start till 12:30 pm (Eastern) Surprisingly immigrants to the US have a long tradition of embracing Thanksgiving whole heartedly, I've heard countless stories from Poles, Germans, Italians, Greeks etc of parents and grandparents barely able to speak English, putting togather the traditional Thanksgiving spread, and feasting on dishes they only eat once a year. Maybe it's not that surprising though, when you think about it, a 4 day to weekend to pig out and relax, would appeal to just about anyone.

When my parents lived in Montreal for 3 to 3 1/2 years (from 1998 to 2001)...they said that Canadians don't put a whole lot into their thanksgiving...that's in October...I was like "WHAT?" hehe...

Mom said it was almost like a "culture shock" for her when it wasn't as big of a deal as it is in America.

You ought to come on down to America during the Thanksgiving weekend...and you'll get yourself some NICE "culture shock" when you see other people loosen their belts and pants...after they eat tons of food. LOL

Actually..it's quite a nice holiday...it's just about the only holiday that most families get together the most...or it may be equaled to Christmas (depending on how the weather goes for travelers). It's a HUGE holiday here. It's the only secular holiday that last for the entire weekend unofficially.

Have a nice weekend.

SPDundas
Deaf Byzantine

Yep, it's pretty big over here, and is effectivly a 4 day weekend. The day after Thanksgiving is celebrated a lot like Boxer Day in Candada (shopping for bargains

I have the advantage in that my wife is Canadian with her parents living across the river in Windsor, ONT.

So I get 2 Thanksgiving dinners each year, with a month off to recover

Seeing both, I find that the dinners are just as filling, but the Canadians don't seem to feel the need to travel large distances to be with family for that particular holiday, or at least as much as the 'Mericans. The gatherings tend to be smaller, but the portions are the same

- Brendan

Please note that all the traditional Thanksgiving foods- turkey, cranberries, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, etc- are native American foods, reflecting the roots of the feast in a shared meal between the New England Puritans and the locals.

Some interesting facts:

For some Native American (ie, the so-called "Indian") groups, Thanksgiving Day is reckoned "The Day of Mourning".

Thanksgiving Day was enacted by President Abraham Lincoln to heal the nation torn apart over Federalism and States' Rights. Our beloved Thanksgiving staple of sweet potato and/or yam was to reflect this: Southern sweet potato or yam was sweetened by Northern maple syrup.

Bishop George (Kuzma) promulgated (I'm not sure of the year) that the civil holiday of Thanksgiving was to be observed as a solemn feastday in the Eparchy of Van Nuys.

I can see why. I asked a friend what he and his family were doing for Thanksgiving. He replied, "Oh, the traditional thing. We invite our neighbors over for supper and then kill them for their land." :p

Logos Teen

Hehehe. I know this will sound funny but Orthodox priest here say that thanksgiving day it's a Protestant Holiday and that "We should have nothing to do with it".

Can you tell me something about the history of this celebration in the USA?

Have a Happy Thanksgiving people from United States!

It is basically a Protestant civic holiday, celebrating the meal that was shared by the Calvinist pilgrims and their Mohegan neighbors upon their first harvest [after a harrowing first year]. Hence the native American foods. On the other hand many of us Catholics also note that it is the only civic holiday that explicitly refers to God and offers him thanks. Living as we do in a post-Calvinist milieu we take what we can get.
I'll bet the Orthodox priest you refer to is ROCOR or from an even more conservative juridiction, which tend to emphasize what divides them from other Christians, instead of what unites them. Many of these groups do not acknowledge that grace and redemption exist outside the visible borders of their particular Orthodox sect. They require, for example, rebaptism of Catholic converts.
This may be an aside but I have recently become aware that there are not a few former SSPX folks among their ranks. Isn't that curious? They went from being the only true Catholics to being the only true Orthodox, a change of opinion without a change of heart: the few, the proud, the deluded.

No actualy he comes from the Constantinople Dioceses. He mentioned something about the offering of Cain and a concept of false brotherhood.

I have heard Catholic priests saying that too and they don't come from conservative circles but from the regular Roman Church of Mexico. I'm starting to think that it's just a matter of National chauvinism from them, or maybe it's hypocrite their attitude of sharing the ailments thanking God with the Indians, before exterminate them (this is the version of a local Roman priest).

As was suggested above, there's a certain truth to this. I think it would be wrong to attribute evil motives to those who shared the original thanksgiving feast with the Native Americans. But, certainly, our history of dealing with them thereafter left much to be desired.

Many years,

Neil

Dear Friends,

Thank you for such an education about your ethnic American traditions!

Up here in Canuckistan, Thanksgiving always was considered an "English" holiday and our Ukie community tended to ignore it, as do other ethnic communities.

However, my in-laws are now in Florida and went to the Ukrainian church in their area for Thanksgiving last Thursday.

There was a full Divine Liturgy with a thanksgiving supper served afterwards in the church hall.

The priest is from Ukraine, married with a daughter, and has a doctorate from Rome - he's fluent in Ukrainian, English and Italian.

Completely different situation - good for them, and for you!

Alex

We did the traditional stuff:
Traveled 3-1/2 hours to my mother-in-law's house (Normally a 2 hour drive, but the traffic!). Took Friday off as a vacation day since my employer doesn't automatically give the day off. Went shopping at 6 a.m. (my mother-in-law gave me her JC Penney card and said "buy yourself something"). Fought the traffic coming home on Sunday afternoon. Shame on us, we didn't go to Liturgy on Thanksgiving. And we didn't watch the football games either!

Dear (Bloated) Friends:

Can someone please confirm that the meat dish cooked for the "First" Thanksgiving dinner between the English pilgrims and the American Indians was "venison stew" and not "roasted turkey?"?

My family sampled such "wild game" theme (offered by a German- or Swiss-sounding restaurant) the Saturday before Thanskgiving!

Definitely more delicious than the bird!

AmdG