Today the United States of America is celebrating Thanksgiving. A day to celebrate, give thanks, and gather family, friends, and loved ones in a feast. Americans celebrate this Thanksgiving every fourth Thursday of November, which is this year’s November 26th.
Thanksgiving feast mainly includes a roast turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pumpkin pie. Some places hold parades to celebrate Thanksgiving, and these usually mark the opening of the Christmas shopping season.
Meanwhile, our kababayans in the Philippines are more likely to be going on their usual day, not aware of what is being celebrated in a foreign country. Like the United States today, unless you are an employee who works under a multinational company based in the US.
But for us Filipinos abroad, Thanksgiving as a precursor to the Christmas season is a much-awaited holiday while we are in a foreign land. If we have stayed long enough here in the US, we might have observed how it has been looked forward to and celebrated for.
The nature of the celebration and the event’s decorations might be different from our homeland celebrations of similar events like this. Still, the spirit is the same: expressing gratitude and coming together to celebrate as a family.
Though we may be miles away from our homeland, these traits were never foreign to us. The only difference is that; we are away from most family members, which drives our hopeful hearts to wish to celebrate with them in the coming years.
Brushing on these thoughts, I have realized that this is not only innate in us for the reason that we, Filipinos, are known for our adaptability and our creative way to blend in any culture, but it is also deeply rooted in us, historically.
During the American period (1901-1935) ─American’s occupation in the Philippines, we have celebrated Thanksgiving annually as an American colony and part of US territory.