When it comes to Thanksgiving everyone typically has their own traditions that they follow for it each and every year. For the most part though, some traditions tend to remain the same such as the food and watching sports.
During Thanksgiving it is pretty custom the type of food that you would typically bring to a Thanksgiving party. Turkey, ham, rice dressing and pumpkin pie are a couple of these foods. In terms of the most memorable part of Thanksgiving, I believe this can typically take the cake.Thankgiving is practically synonymous with food as any time you mention it food is bound to be brought up in the conversation.
Then there is the annual Thanksgiving football game. Now personally I don’t really watch sports as it’s not really my thing, but I know many tend to enjoy watching football during Thanksgiving as well. The reason this tradition came to be it would seem is that it’s due to Thanksgiving being a day that most people tend to be off work, making it the perfect time to sit back and watch football with family and friends.
Those are just some of the more common ones I would say. There are many more Thanksgiving traditions I’ve seen out there that aren’t followed as heavily as the food and football traditions. One such tradition being the breaking of the wishbone. I know that breaking a wishbone is probably a decently common Thanksgiving tradition, at least according to the media.
It’s a tradition typically common in Thanksgiving episodes of shows, but despite its common portrayal I’ve never really ever participated in this tradition. I mean, I didn’t even know this was a thing until around middleschool when I saw it talked about in a video and then suddenly I started hearing about it everywhere.
Despite not entirely believing in superstitions fully, I still think I would like to break a wishbone some day, maybe if I wish to be done with finals it might come true if I’m lucky enough.
Another tradition that is held on Thanksgiving is the Turkey Trot. Now this one I never really heard of before until just a few hours ago before writing this. For those who don’t know what a Turkey Trot is, it is a five to ten kilometer race named after Thanksgiving’s most famous food, turkey. Considering that I dislike running, it makes sense as to why I’ve never really known about this tradition before. Despite this however, it does still seem like an interesting tradition.
During these races it seems to be pretty common for people to dress up. One of the most common costumes, of course, being a turkey. It is also possible that by getting in a high place during this race means that it is possible for you to win a frozen turkey which I honestly think is kind of cool.
Lastly, giving back to the community is also a pretty common tradition people do for the holiday. After all, Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what you have, and what better way to express that thanks than to give back to your own community by either donating Thanksgiving dinners to those without anyone to share Thanksgiving with or maybe by helping clean up around town.
In terms of Thanksgiving traditions, this one is probably the best way to truly show the meaning of Thanksgiving, by returning the favor to the community that you love to show thanks for its kindness towards you and your neighbors. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to spend Thanksgiving this way. Even though this is probably the most ideal way to spend Thanksgiving, I wouldn’t say it is my favorite.
I think my favorite part of Thanksgiving though is probably the more family and friend oriented type stuff such as visiting with those you may not have talked to in a while or playing games together. As a Visual Arts major, I am typically always busy working on some sort of art project and rarely get the chance to attend as many events with family or friends as I wish I could, so Thanksgiving gives me that opportunity to visit and hangout that I don’t typically have.
I remember as a kid one of the traditions we used to hold for Thanksgiving was that after eating we typically would have a time where we all sat down and played board games together. I have a lot of fond memories of those moments as typically the games could tend to be really funny and enjoyable to watch my family play. As time went on though sadly this stopped becoming a tradition like it used to be, instead we just ate, visited and watched football.
Still, even with that tradition of playing games fading out, I still enjoy Thanksgiving of course, but I hope that at least some day maybe that tradition of playing games with each other might come back someday.
I believe that it is these traditions that make Thanksgiving such a truly splendid holiday to celebrate.