Thanksgiving, more than just about food
I woke up that cold November morning, made a few additions to my luggage and started my journey to the Greyhound bus station – I was going to celebrate my first Thanksgiving with some friends in Washington DC.
By Mary Odeke
I woke up that cold November morning, made a few additions to my luggage and started my journey to the Greyhound bus station – I was going to celebrate my first Thanksgiving with some friends in Washington DC.
In the Thanksgiving tradition, families gather at a parent or older relative’s home to share a sumptuous meal. The bus station was crammed and busier than an ant colony. Ticket queues were so long and the lines leading up to the gates were crisscrossed, it was hard to tell them apart. The Philadelphia highways were clogged for miles, somewhat like Kampala on a rainy afternoon only a much larger scale and more organised.
The journey I had planned for 10:00am eventually started at 1:00pm. Everybody was making their best effort to get home in time for the holiday. I saw a mother with several kids on their best behaviour. In case anyone got wiggly, she gave them a look that made whatever was bothering them magically disappear.
The Thanksgiving holiday in the US is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November - a tradition that started centuries ago. Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution left England in search of a “New Worldâ€, one where they would be free to worship God as they saw fit.
They arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621 but because of a harsh winter that year they suffered and many died of disease and starvation.
The Native Americans welcomed them, taught them how to farm and the next year they had a bountiful harvest. To show their appreciation, the pilgrims cooked lots of food and invited their Native American friends to join in the celebration – to thank God for bountiful blessings. In 1789 George Washington made the first presidential proclamation declaring Thanksgiving a national event.
Then in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November a national day of Thanksgiving.
It is not Thanksgiving without a turkey, so while chicken die like a problem on Christmas and Easter in Uganda - turkeys suffer the same fate over Thanksgiving.
They stand a better chance in the US because every year some turkeys are pardoned and left to die of old age. The turkey is traditionally served with cranberry sauce which is the one thing I did not like on the Thanksgiving menu. Cranberry sauce tastes like sour jam, so eating it with turkey took getting used to.
When I was told we were having pumpkin pie for desert my inside cringed, I never imagined pumpkin as a desert but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s really tasty and nothing like the pumpkin I was thinking about. So, baked turkey with stuffing, a little cranberry sauce on the side, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn (maize), pecans, and marsh mellows and it’s a Thanksgiving feast for sure.
On the morning of Thanksgiving, parades march in procession on the city streets. The most famous being New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It attracts about three million spectators and draws an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.
After Thanksgiving there is an eager buzz about Black Friday. Judging from its name I thought something terrible was going to happen - apparently not.
Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days in the US. It is considered the unofficial start to Christmas holiday shopping and department stores slice their prices. From about 4:00am, parking lots are filled and endless queues of people brave chilly temperatures outside the stores of their preference. When the doors are opened there is a mad dash for items - customers literally shop till they drop.
So Friday is only black for the police because they have to deal the large crowds of traffic moving in and out of shopping malls and department stores.
Even though the events surrounding thanksgiving are commercialised and the reason for the season is lost in the feasting, it is good to have an attitude of gratitude.
Freelance writer
I woke up that cold November morning, made a few additions to my luggage and started my journey to the Greyhound bus station – I was going to celebrate my first Thanksgiving with some friends in Washington DC.
In the Thanksgiving tradition, families gather at a parent or older relative’s home to share a sumptuous meal. The bus station was crammed and busier than an ant colony. Ticket queues were so long and the lines leading up to the gates were crisscrossed, it was hard to tell them apart. The Philadelphia highways were clogged for miles, somewhat like Kampala on a rainy afternoon only a much larger scale and more organised.
The journey I had planned for 10:00am eventually started at 1:00pm. Everybody was making their best effort to get home in time for the holiday. I saw a mother with several kids on their best behaviour. In case anyone got wiggly, she gave them a look that made whatever was bothering them magically disappear.
The Thanksgiving holiday in the US is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November - a tradition that started centuries ago. Pilgrims fleeing religious persecution left England in search of a “New Worldâ€, one where they would be free to worship God as they saw fit.
They arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621 but because of a harsh winter that year they suffered and many died of disease and starvation.
The Native Americans welcomed them, taught them how to farm and the next year they had a bountiful harvest. To show their appreciation, the pilgrims cooked lots of food and invited their Native American friends to join in the celebration – to thank God for bountiful blessings. In 1789 George Washington made the first presidential proclamation declaring Thanksgiving a national event.
Then in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November a national day of Thanksgiving.
It is not Thanksgiving without a turkey, so while chicken die like a problem on Christmas and Easter in Uganda - turkeys suffer the same fate over Thanksgiving.
They stand a better chance in the US because every year some turkeys are pardoned and left to die of old age. The turkey is traditionally served with cranberry sauce which is the one thing I did not like on the Thanksgiving menu. Cranberry sauce tastes like sour jam, so eating it with turkey took getting used to.
When I was told we were having pumpkin pie for desert my inside cringed, I never imagined pumpkin as a desert but I was pleasantly surprised. It’s really tasty and nothing like the pumpkin I was thinking about. So, baked turkey with stuffing, a little cranberry sauce on the side, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn (maize), pecans, and marsh mellows and it’s a Thanksgiving feast for sure.
On the morning of Thanksgiving, parades march in procession on the city streets. The most famous being New York City’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It attracts about three million spectators and draws an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.
After Thanksgiving there is an eager buzz about Black Friday. Judging from its name I thought something terrible was going to happen - apparently not.
Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days in the US. It is considered the unofficial start to Christmas holiday shopping and department stores slice their prices. From about 4:00am, parking lots are filled and endless queues of people brave chilly temperatures outside the stores of their preference. When the doors are opened there is a mad dash for items - customers literally shop till they drop.
So Friday is only black for the police because they have to deal the large crowds of traffic moving in and out of shopping malls and department stores.
Even though the events surrounding thanksgiving are commercialised and the reason for the season is lost in the feasting, it is good to have an attitude of gratitude.
Freelance writer