Turkey as Sales Icon in the United States

Run and get in line because it is thanksgiving and sales begin!

Well, to tell you the truth I never heard anything like this on the radio or on TV. However, this seemed to be the message Houstonians had received before Friday November 24, since at 8 p.m. there people lined up in front of stores so they could be the first ones to enjoy the mega sales (some stores opened at midnight, while others opened at 5 a.m.).

In the United States, people annually celebrate Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November. The festivity began in the XVII century when a group of American pilgrims organized a big meal to thank the natives for teaching them to harvest the items found in the New World, allowing them to survive through winter.

Since then, for Thanksgiving, Americans get together with their family members for a large meal with stuffed turkey with cranberry sauce, corn bread, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes casserole, and green beans, among other things, and apple pie, pumpkin pie and pecan pie for dessert (they have other pies too).

Thanksgiving is one of the most important festivities in the United States; it breaks though religious and cultural boundaries and all citizens enjoy the celebration with the same enthusiasm.

In 2007, the number of people who traveled to meet their family members broke a record: according to the Associated Press AAA Spokesman Troy Green said “Surveys indicated a record 38.7 million U.S. residents were likely to travel 50 miles or more for the holiday period of Wednesday through Sunday, up about 1.5 percent over last year.”

According to a survey done by Cowen & Co., this year “consumers who plan to shop that day expect to spend 42% of their budgets, compared with 36% last year.”

Even though Thanksgiving got started as an event to give thanks, and many Americans maintain this tradition, the date has also become an icon for sales, which undervalues the celebration and plays against family unity.

Nevertheless, I cannot deny that this year I enthusiastically joined the group of sale-hunting early risers.

I give Thanks for Thanksgiving in Argentina

I had always thought Thanksgiving was a celebration that revolved around food. In fact, the last time I celebrated it I drove 13 hours, from Fort Worth, TX to St. Louis, Missouri with a group of college friends, to celebrate it with home cooking.

However, this year I realized that food is only a plus; the celebration is not the same separated from family traditions.

Hoping to relive the experience, November 24 of 2006, I celebrated Thanksgiving with a groups of American friends at “Kansas” in Buenos Aires.

We enjoyed stuffed turkey with cranberry sauce, smashes sweet potatoes with nuts, creamed spinach and mashes potatoes with gravy, and we gave thanks for everything we have.

However, it didn’t really feel like Thanksgiving. Even though our palates had traveled to the US since the restaurant’s cooks had perfectly achieved traditional Thanksgiving recipes, the spirit of camaraderie was missing. You couldn’t sense that fraternal spirit that is born while everyone prepares the food together, pealing potatoes, baking casseroles, beating eggs for the cake, checking the oven, etc.

On top of that, we only had two choices for dessert: either pumpkin pie or pecan pie, while in St. Louis, my friend’s mom had prepared 12 pies, one for eat person.

Even though I am not American, and this celebration does not affect me directly, I think it is nice to reserve a day (in this case the fourth Thursday of November) to give thanks for all the things we have been blessed with.


A Piece of History
Pilgrims from Virginia were the first one to celebrate Thanksgiving to thank Squanto for his collaboration, back on December 4, 1619.

Squanto had learned to speak English on one of his trips to Europe and he helped the pilgrims to interact with the natives. Squanto also thought pilgrims to fish for eels, to harvest corn, which enabled them to survive the adversity of the new land.