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The American Thanksgiving Weekend

The American Thanksgiving Day celebrations kick off what for most people is a four-day holiday. Aside from eating a big Turkey dinner on Thursday, here are some of the other activities that people engage in over that weekend:

1. American football: There are two nationally-televised football games on Thanksgiving Day, with special entertainments scheduled during the half times. It is also traditional for High Schools to schedule important football games on this day, or to simply organize a family game in the back yard.

2. The Macy’s Day parade: Macy’s, the large New York City department store, has organized a lavish parade on Thanksgiving every year since 1926. It features gigantic helium baloons depicting various story characters, and it is also watched on television across the country.

3. Shopping: The Friday after Thanksgiving Day is known as “Black Friday” in the retail industry, since it represents the day that many stores finally go black, or make a profit for the year. It is one of the busiest shopping days of the year, with many stores offering special sales and discounts, and it officially kicks off the Christmas shopping season.

4. Holiday Decorating: In many neighborhoods, people decorate their houses and front yards for the winter holiday season with strings of lights and holiday-related ornaments. Traditionally, the Thanksgiving weekend is used to clean the house and put these decorations in place, which then remain lit through the end-of-year Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

(Note that other late-autumn holidays, such as the Hindu festival of Diwali, also involve shopping, cleaning and decorating houses with lights!)

To read about the origins and customs of American Thanksgiving, click here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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