1 Dec 2006

Traditional celebration

United States

In the United States, certain kinds of food are traditionally served at Thanksgiving meals. First and foremost, turkey is usually the featured item on any Thanksgiving feast table (so much so that Thanksgiving is sometimes referred to as "Turkey Day"). Stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, Indian corn, other fall vegetables, and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner.
In the Northeastern United States, the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest nights of the year for bars and pubs, as it is the first night back to their hometowns for many college students returning from the semester.[2]
On Thanksgiving Day, families and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner, the result being that the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
In New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade (often erroneously referred to as the "Macy's Day Parade") is held annually every Thanksgiving Day on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The parade features parade floats with specific themes, scenes from Broadway plays, large balloons of cartoon characters and TV personalities, and high school marching bands. The float that traditionally ends the Macy's Parade is the Santa Claus float. This float is a sign that the Christmas season has begun. Thanksgiving parades also occur in many cities such as Plymouth, Houston, Philadelphia (which claims the oldest parade), and Detroit (where it is the only major parade of the year). Within the New York metropolitan area, the city of Stamford, Connecticut holds an alternative parade to the Macy's parade (with different characters on the balloons) the Sunday before Thanksgiving that has attracted over 250,000 people in recent years. Because of the earlier date, Santa Claus parades in Canada do not fall on Thanksgiving; the only major parade on that day in Canada is the Oktoberfest parade in Kitchener-Waterloo. The Houston parade was renamed in 2006 to a "holiday Parade" due to new sponsorship of HEB grocery chain.
Traditional Thanksgiving DinnerThe American winter holiday season (generally the Christmas shopping season in the U.S.) traditionally begins the day after Thanksgiving, known as "Black Friday", although most stores actually start to stock for and promote the December holidays immediately after Halloween, and sometimes even before. Opponents of consumerism in some places protest this behavior by declaring the day after Thanksgiving Buy Nothing Day.
American football is often a major part of Thanksgiving celebrations in the U.S. and likewise Canadian football in Canada. Professional games are traditionally played on Thanksgiving Day in both countries; until recently in the U.S., these were the only games played during the week apart from Sunday or Monday night. In Canada, these are the only games played on a Monday except for the Labour Day classic, and on the Civic Holiday. In America, the tradition is referred to as the Thanksgiving Classic. The Detroit Lions of the American National Football League have hosted a game every Thanksgiving Day since 1934, with the exception of 1939–1944 (due to World War II). The Dallas Cowboys have hosted every Thanksgiving Day since 1966, with the exception of 1975 and 1977 when the then-St. Louis Cardinals hosted. The Kansas City Chiefs hosted games during their days in the American Football League, and will revive that tradition in 2006 when they host the Denver Broncos on Thanksgiving. Additionally, many college and high school football games are played over Thanksgiving weekend, often between regional or historic rivals.
U.S. tradition compares the holiday with a meal held in 1621 by the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This element continues in modern times with the Thanksgiving dinner, often featuring turkey, playing a large role in the celebration of Thanksgiving. Some of the details of the American Thanksgiving story are myths that developed in the 1890s and early 1900s as part of the effort to forge a common national identity in the aftermath of the Civil War and in the melting pot of new immigrants

Canada

In Canada, Thanksgiving is a three-day weekend (although some provinces choose to observe a four day weekend, Friday–Monday). While the actual Thanksgiving holiday is on a Monday, Canadians might eat their Thanksgiving meal on any day of that three day weekend. This often means celebrating a meal with one group of relatives on one day, and another meal with a different group of relatives on another day. Although in English Canada Thanksgiving is often celebrated with family, it is also often a time for weekend getaways for couples to observe the autumn leaves, spend one last weekend at the cottage or participate in various outdoor activities such as hiking, fishing and hunting. The holiday is not as significant a family occasion amongst French Canadians, however

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