Thankfulness Of The Pilgrims

The First Thanksgiving | wikipedia

It has been 25 years since my then one and only Thanks Giving Dinner. We had turkey filled with chestnuts, which was delicious. I had been invited by my friend Thomas and his American partner. Last Thursday Sarah gave a party to celebrate the day together with some friends.

Giving Thanks

Thursday, the 24th of November was Thanksgiving Day. As my introduction says I am not very experienced in Thanksgiving Dinners and did know precious little of the whole tradition. So I did some research on the internet:

​"Thanksgiving can be traced back to the 1621 celebration at the Plymouth Plantation, where the religious refugees from England known popularly as the Pilgrims or Pilgrim Fathers invited the local Native Americans to a harvest feast after a particularly successful growing season. While in our days Britons think of it as a warm-up for the Yuletide period, many Americans think of it as just as important as Christmas.
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The typical German, Austrian or Swiss thanksgiving celebration (Erntedankfest) is usually a rural harvest time observance with church services, a parade, music, and a country fair atmosphere, which usually takes place in September or October. The British equivalent is called Harvest Day. In an article of The Telegraph it says:"... it's a lot less of a big deal. While we usually take a few non-perishables down to our local church and enter our autumn vegetables in competitions, Thanksgiving in North America is a much more plentiful and extravagant affair." Similar harvest festivals are common in many countries and regions around the globe."
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Saying Thanks

At Sarah's place last week we had a very nice evening with lovely food. Sarah and me prepared some of it. I baked a bread and Kathy and Oliver, Yolanda and Laurence and Ian also contributed something to the dinner. Before the cheese and pudding Sarah asked us to think about something we feel grateful for. Kathy's ten year old son Oliver gladdened our hearts telling her: "I am thankful to have you as my mum."
For me and Sesto it was gratefulness to all our hosts on our pilgrimage, the path itself and the beautiful souls we have encountered so far. The world is full of great people. To get to know this and to tell it to other people really lifts ones spirit in these days. Gratefulness is a leading threat on our life path for a long time now. And when I say "Thanks" in my evening prayer for all the small and big gifts of only one single day, I feel how rich I am. Something that makes my heart leap for joy.
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Impressions

Treasure Hunt

The evening had started with the introduction of a Treasure Hunt. Everybody had a guess where the treasure might be hidden and set his mark on a map. After the dinner we went back to the map to see who came the closest with his guess. There were three prizes and as Kathy generously shared her first prize chocolates with us, everybody was a winner in the end.
​In the late evening with ongoing conversations we found some interesting similarities on our different lifepaths and interest in some common topics, what maybe has been the real Treasure Hunt of our coming together.
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Hunt for Stuff

"Does the UK care about Thanksgiving? Yes, sort of in a commercial sense, although we maybe don't realise it. Black Friday first arrived in the UK five years ago when Amazon thought it would try its luck bringing the American shopping sensation to a new market.
In 2013, Asda, which is owned by American retail giant Walmart, participated in UK's version of Black Friday, and last year most major UK retailers including John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Argos and even British Airways jumped on board. ... Shoppers trampled over each other in their rush to enter stores and police were called to break up fights as consumers grappled over discounted televisions and behaved "like animals"."
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links
an article in the telegraph describes the origin and whole history of Thanks Giving including does and dont's ;-) | what about the Erntedankfest? | Yule or Yuletide, what is the difference? | Last but not least: What is Black Friday? | Read about Rebecca Daves "Friendsgiving" in Scotland