Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Thanksgiving......

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we have kindly been invited to one of Ben's colleagues to celebrate.

For those who don't know what Thanksgiving is (I wasn't sure)

Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Traditionally, it has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. While it may have been religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday.[1]It is sometimes casually referred to as Turkey Day.


Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, has been an annual tradition in the United Statessince 1863, when during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.[1]
The event that Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated to give thanks to God for helping the Pilgrims ofPlymouth Colony survive their first brutal winter in New England.[2] The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days, providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.[3] The feast consisted of fish (codeels, and bass) and shellfish (clamslobster, andmussels), wild fowl (ducksgeeseswans, and turkey), venisonberries and fruit, vegetables (peaspumpkinbeetroot and possibly,wild or cultivated onion), harvest grains (barley and wheat), and the Three Sistersbeans, dried Indian maize or corn, andsquash.[4][2][5][6] The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "Thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.[7]



A typical Thanksgiving dinner consists of turkey, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, yams, mash potatoes, corn on the cob, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie for pudding.


I was going to take along my pumpkin bread but not sure I want to inflict that on anyone so I have gone for the safe option of sweet potatoes in maple syrup.  There is another popular dish where you mash the sweet potato and them melt marshmallows on top, I'm sure the kids would've loved that.



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