I’m thankful to all my friends here on this blog — and the lurkers (I see you!!) — and all the dramas (both in reel and real life) that we’ve shared. Thanks for making Bitchesoverdramas fun, silly, snooty, angry, catty, perverted, cantankerous, cheerful, nonsensical and thought-provoking all at the same time. I thought that I’d lose interest after two months of blogging about kdramas but here I am, checking my iphone first thing in the morning for posts. I couldn’t have done this without you all.
Thank you!!!
Do you want to know a little “secret”? Since we’re gossiping bitches here, we should know the real truth about Thanksgiving.
The first Thanksgiving in North America wasn’t in November. It was in September. The Pilgrims in Massachusetts just “packaged” their Thanksgiving better and their event planner was verrrryyyy media-savvy even before the age of internet and twitter.
The first Thanksgiving was actually in Florida 56 years earlier when the Spanish settlers arrived in what’s now known as St. Augustine. They said a Catholic mass as thanksgiving for their safe voyage and then had a communal meal afterwards. They invited the native Indian tribe who was curiously observing their celebration of the mass.
source: https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/historyculture/the-first-thanksgiving.htm
Also, almost two years before the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving in Plymouth Plantation in 1621, the first official *English* (to distinguish from the Spanish one in Florida) Thanksgiving occurred in Virginia in the Berkeley Plantation.
source: http://www.berkeleyplantation.com/first-thanksgiving.html
But Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving to “implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of a nation and restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes.”
So before you all think of Thanksgiving as an event to pig out on turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce and mashed potato, dinner rolls and pumpkin pie, let’s all remember that the roots of Thanksgiving were Christianity. The settlers just survived the rough seas for months; they were in an unknown, and potentially dangerous, territory; they were outnumbered by natives; and they had to call that New World their new home.
They had reasons to be thankful for and also reasons to implore for divine intervention in days, months and years ahead. I think the spirit of the first Thanksgiving (take your pick which one is the first) is greatly needed now, too.
A Thanksgiving Prayer
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
Peace Prayer of Saint Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
As for MY family tradition, we’re going to hear mass this morning then help stock the food pantry in church. Lunch will be a light and hurried affair because the cooks will begin the food preparation. We often send the menfolk outdoors to rake the leaves, fix the fence, spruce up the treehouse, tidy up the shed, shoot hoops or play football so we’re not tripping over them in the kitchen.
My sisters-in-law and I have been trying to “diversify” our menu and introduce an international side dish.
One year, we had sushi and sashimi. (lol. That didn’t go down well with gravy and cranberry sauce.) Another year, we had aloo gobi, which is an Indian dish with cauliflower and potatoes (hahaha. That was MY idea because I love aloo gobi…the mild version.) Then last year, Vietnamese fried spring rolls were added to the menu. (Yummmm. That was a hit, too.) I don’t what my sister-in-law is making for the family this year since we take turns. I heard it’s a Brazilian cuisine so it’s probably more meat. But I’ll definitely do japchae (or teokbokki!!) next year. lol.
This is cute…except for that squid/octopus-looking thing in the foreground.
credit: fromthearmchair.net
A very happy Thanksgiving to you @packmule3 and to everyone in the US who celebrates.
I’m thankful for my home and family, for being able to walk normally again after having had a fall 5 days ago, for being able to drive and pick up the kids, for a special retreat next week that’s going to keep me occupied for 5 full days!!!, for time to indulge in dramas and not least of all, for friends both online and offline, here and all over the place! Thanks for the chat, the different take on shows and fun and sharing! I look forward to lots more. 😁
In Switzerland, we don’t have Thanksgiving, but in November there is my birthday, so I love this month 😀
I wish you a happy Thanksgiving 🙂
Happy thanksgiving! I am grateful for good health, wellness of mind and spirit, company of friends and family. Every day is a day of grace. 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving! I’m thankful that we emigrated to the US so many years ago.
Happy American Thanksgiving! In Canada, we celebrate the second Monday of October because the weather is still relatively good. We’ve always had the harvest festival thanksgiving in Canada, , but borrowed the name from our American cousins. We date the first one to Martin Frobisher’s arrival in Nunavut! We eat exactly the same foods as Americans, and usually repeat the same at Christmas.
My thanks to you all. I am so happy to find such a smart, engaged and imaginative group to gab with about kdrama! A special thanks to Packmule for her critical analyses and providing us with this blog and forum.
I have a sudden craving for a turkey dinner…
I hope your thanksgiving was great! 😊
Thanks for the history too. I love that prayer of Saint Francis. My boy’s both chose that as their Confirmation Saint. ☺️
I’m grateful and thankful for all the blessings that me and my whole family have especially good health.
Will hop over to your capital this week. 🙂 BRrrrr… I’m not ready for your Canadian winter. I wanted to do this meeting on skype from my warm and cozy office but some things (like, a couple break-up, lol) are best done face to face.
Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving holiday! I hope everyone enjoyed themselves on the day and will continue to have a relaxing weekend. I’m thankful for the support of family and friends, and that includes “internet friends” here too. It’s been a rough year for me and being able to watch and discuss Asian dramas has really been a blessing to help me de-stress.
My goodness, I didn’t realize we had so many “first Thanksgivings”, nor that it was celebrated in Canada. I always associate the Thanksgiving story with Plymouth, Mass. and certainly as a uniquely American holiday. (Guess that will have to be North America now).
For me, one of the best things about Thanksgiving is that while its roots are Christian, to me it is not a Christian holiday, but a secular holiday meant to encourage inclusivity. It doesn’t matter what faith you are (or not as the case may be), the holiday focuses on togetherness and being thankful for all of the positives in one’s life. So every American can celebrate it freely, and everyone is included. I love that Thanksgiving embraces the diversity of Americans, and it unites us too. It’s nice to see that Pres. Lincoln recognized the power of Thanksgiving to encourage inclusiveness too. I’ll agree that we need more of that spirit here today.
I’ll share this quote from Maya Angelou:
“Be present in all things and Thankful for all things.”
Poor Pkm3! I’m in Vancouver and we count ourselves lucky if we get snow. I spent one winter weekend in Ottawa and it was almost as cold as Norway at Christmas. Brrrrr.
I love that sentiment, Table. My family is all agnostics and Anglicans and even if some of us don’t know who we’re thanking we think a familial shout out from time to time is a good thing.
I actually went to an American elementary school when I was growing up overseas and your stories and tall tales are so much better and more memorable than Canadian stories. So I thought Canada had just stolen thanksgiving and the Pilgrim story outright from the US, and in a way we did, but harvest festival days predate Thanksgiving. Apparently the farmers thought all the city-goers were stealing ‘their’ day when Thanksgiving became a holiday! And their day came from the old world.
As a curiosity and a little OT, I have taught ESL to classes where students come from all over the world, and I have to say I never knew the idea of a pot luck was so foreign to most peoples, whether from Taiwan or Brazil. In some places, the idea that the host doesn’t provide everything is almost scandalous, as if you’d be stealing his/her prestige. Teaching ESL really opened my eyes in some ways!