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    #51
    Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
    I'm thankful for Thanksgiving itself. The best holiday.

    Everything shuts. People have fun. There's no pressure. No presents. No obligations. You just eat, and see family or friends, and have a day off, and no religious overtones or undertones.
    That's all good, but what about the poor buggers who have to slave away in the kitchens?

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      #52
      As public holidays go, the early December ones in Spain are pretty weird, due to their distribution. 6 December is Constitution Day (marking the approval of the Spanish Constitution back in 1978); then on 8 December there's the Feast of the Immaculate Conception,. If these days fall on, say, a Monday and Wednesday, then there's invariably a "puente" - bridge - meaning that lots of schools, civil servants and others get an extra day off, or just take one anyway. I suspect that the 6 December Constitution date was chosen precisely with an eye on this possibility. There are no great family gatherings on these dates, by the way, save what would happen normally, but with the Christmas, New Year and Kings Day holidays just around the corner it does mean that Spain pretty much runs at half-speed for about a month.

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        #53
        One year when I was living in Spain the 6th was a Tuesday and the 8th a Thursday, and they gave everybody the whole week off, and called it a "viaducto"

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          #54
          My day was pretty good.

          I cooked roast beef, yorkshires, the whole shebang, and then went to work, which was absolute mayhem. Which of course meant that 10 hours went really fast. Got home about 15 minutes ago. Am about to finally eat dinner as food was laid on at work (and sucked). But all in all, a nice day.

          Happy African American Friday y'all.

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            #55
            Had a real good day. In Byhalia MS with friends. Smoked a turkey and ate like a glutton. Hope all of you had a fine day.

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              #56
              Originally posted by San Bernardhinault View Post
              It's not a formal bank holiday, but it is more of a de facto holiday that half of the "real" ones. Everyone having that day off is the cause of the "Black Friday" ridiculousness.
              Thank you so much for giving us Black Friday guys: nobody in the swimming-pool at lunchtime and hardly anyone on the beach this afternoon!

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                #57
                Went to the wife's cousin's house outside Sacramento again this year - about 40 people (and more than a few dogs) on Thanksgiving day, which is rather too many for me but does make it easier to avoid the mother and sister in law and spend time with the more palatable relatives. We stay the night nearby and I enjoy the Friday a lot more, down to around a dozen people almost all of whom are quite easy to get along with, no pressure of having to prepare any food (beyond warming up leftovers) and basically spend the day shooting the breeze and slowly working the way through the dishwashing.
                This year there were several people who'd just lost their houses and they seemed to be handling it remarkably well, on the whole. Getting out of Paradise sounded pretty sketchy, in one case the neighbour's house was already on fire when they pulled out of their driveway.

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                  #58
                  I can't even imagine the horror and the heartbreak of that--of seeing it happen and being powerless to stop it. I am making a donation to Feeding America that I will specify to go to the California wildfires.

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                    #59
                    Originally posted by S. aureus View Post
                    Went to the wife's cousin's house outside Sacramento again this year - about 40 people (and more than a few dogs) on Thanksgiving day...
                    You didn't have to do the calculation about the current meme of whether your Thanksgiving get-together had more or fewer people than the CA Republican congressional delegation. You might have had as many as the Democratic one... We were right on the edge - equal to it if CA-21 flips.

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                      #60
                      Do all US citizens celebrate Thanksgiving? Is it a festival which transcends all racial, religious, gender and class boundaries or are there people who ignore it, in the same way as in the UK there are folk who don't do Christmas?

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                        #61
                        The only real opposition to it is from some Native American activists, whose position is grounded in the inaccuracies of the founding myth. It remains the most widely shared holiday by some distance.

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                          #62
                          Well, happy thanksgiving to all our US based OTF friends.

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                            #63
                            Our family keeps it low key. It was just my parents, Tonka and I and we didn’t get a whole turkey. I’m happy to have the days off and time to spend with family, but we don’t make a big effort. It’s a huge hassle to fly on Thanksgiving. We’ve never tried to get the extended family together for it. We used to do that for Christmas, but that’s become increasingly difficult so we just do the best we can when we can. I don’t understand families that go to great expense and effort to be together on this specific day, especially if they don’t really get along.




                            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                            The only real opposition to it is from some Native American activists, whose position is grounded in the inaccuracies of the founding myth. It remains the most widely shared holiday by some distance.
                            The business about the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock was retconned onto existing traditions in the 19th century.

                            Here’s an article with responses from native people discussing what they do with the holiday.

                            https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs...-thanksgiving/
                            Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 30-11-2019, 04:32.

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