Black Friday...

The next day, I went to experience Black Friday. It's the day after Thanksgiving and stores have large discounts. It is regarded to be the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Therefore, people camp in front of the stores to be the first person in line when they open. I have to say, I was a little bit disappointed because I didn't see any large crowds or people fighting for the last Game of Thrones DVD-box. Maybe it was because I left the house at 12pm, I don't know. But obviously the battle was already over. 

My Conclusion

The rest of the evening we sat together, drank some homemade apple wine and had funny discussions. I really enjoyed my first Thanksgiving, as it gave me the chance to meet a lot of relatives which I have never met before. Compared to a German holiday, I would say it is Christmas without presents, snow, and church, but therefore with football!

Football and Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving tradition is watching football! While our duck was cooking and sweating in the oven, we watched some football. I still don't totally understand the game, but I learned a lot about it on that day! As my relatives were cheering and swearing at the same time, they also explained me the rules and how obvious they actually are...NOT! It is still a quite confusing game for me, but I am looking forward to my next football lesson next Thanksgiving!

Some German Tradition

I am not such a fan of turkey, as I personally think it is a little bit too try. Therefore, my aunt, who is a great chef, prepared a traditional German holiday dinner.

My family and I had a duck with German bread dumplings, red cabbage, gravy, salad and for dessert we had a homemade cheese cake. So we brought some German tradition into Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Dinner

For Thanksgiving the whole family gathers and enjoys a big dinner together. The traditional American Thanksgiving Dinner includes a turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, brown gravy, green beans, and corn. For dessert you usually have pumpkin pie.

The German Thanksgiving

As most countries, Germany also has a Thanksgiving. The Harvest Thanksgiving Festival, so called Erntedankfest, is an early October, German Christian festival. The festival has a significant religious component to it, but also, like its North American counterpart, includes large harvest dinners (consisting mostly of autumn crops). However, it is not a national holiday and therefore people don't celebrate it as in the past.

The Bavarian beer festival Oktoberfest generally takes place within the vicinity of Erntedankfest. It became a large event with visitors from all over the world.

 

What's Thanksgiving?

I celebrated my first Thanksgiving in the United States with my family. Therefore, I was very excited and of course I did some research first, as I didn't know much about it. So here's some background:
In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving tradition is commonly traced to a documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. Thanksgiving, currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Historically, Thanksgiving began as a tradition of celebrating the harvest of the year.