Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Thanksgiving (11/22/12) and Black Friday (11/23/12)

Thanksgiving is a holiday which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada. It's different in both countries because winter starts sooner in Canada. Thanksgiving is a tradition to celebrate the harvest of the year. Many other countries celebrate Thanksgiving at different times according to their harvest season.

Thanksgiving dinner is the main event of the day when families get together for a feast and give thanks for all that they are grateful for. Turkey plays a central role in the Thanksgiving celebration; the turkey is either baked or roasted. Mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, other fall vegetables and pumpkin pie are commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner. This year I had the privilege to celebrate it with an American family for the first time.

Thanksgiving Feast











My plate
Our friends had cooked a lovely Thanksgiving meal for us. There was turkey, salad with dressing, stuffing, another sort of a salad with fruits and orange cream, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade bread rolls and homemade pumpkin pie.




Pumpkin Pie


Right after Thanksgiving, comes Black Friday. Black Friday marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, many major retail stores open very early (usually 12:00 AM of Friday) and offer promotional sales to kick of the holiday season. Prices are majorly slashed and that is why Black Friday is considered to be the biggest sale and busiest shopping day of the year (somewhat like Boxing Day in the UK). This year however, many shops opened the sale much earlier (8:00 PM of Thursday) and named it "Gray Thursday." People were out and shopping at 8:00 PM on Thursday. Many protested that this was wrong because Thursday was meant only for Thanksgiving and not shopping. 
Well, I'm all ready to go shopping! :p
Black Friday rush at Walmart
Check out the crowd at Walmart at night. It seems as if people just ate their dinner and rushed to the stores. The workers at these stores probably didn't get any time at all to enjoy Thanksgiving. Black Friday is known to attract aggressive shoppers and there have been instances when shoppers have trampled on other shoppers in order to get the best deal. I've heard that someone died a few years ago because they got crushed under a stampede of people. We had our Thanksgiving dinner very early so we had enough time to come home, rest, get dressed and go out again. We weren't particularly looking to buy anything; I just wanted to see what it was like. Eventually, we did end up buying some DVDs and Blurays because they were just so cheap. 

My Black Friday Shopping :)










It was fun, though. Never thought I'd see so many avid shoppers at midnight. It was a good experience. I guess I'll be a smarter shopper next time around. I like the idea of Cyber Monday though (which was yesterday). Cyber Monday is an online sale which I think is a lot smarter because you don't have to stand in long queues to pay, you don't have to fight to get into the store to find the deals and feel bad if you didn't get it. I did my shopping online yesterday from Forever 21 because it was free shipping! I love free shipping :)

Hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. 
We are thankful for such wonderful family and friends.
God bless everyone.
x

No comments:

Post a Comment