For this podcast I decided to speak with my American friend Liz Jackson from Boston about the famous American holiday in November, Thanksgiving. I’m from England and I have never experienced a Thanksgiving, so I was keen to talk to Liz about it. And I learned some interesting things that I didn’t know about the origins and how it compares to Christmas.

Transcript:
I wanted to invite you here today to talk about Thanksgiving, because as a British person we don’t do Thanksgiving in England. But, you seem to have two Christmases from what I see. Because you have Christmas and then we have these images from the American films (because the American films are the best, let’s face it!)

Gotta love Hollywood!

Yeah! And there are these images of the turkey and Chritsmas decorations and then you hear people saying “It’s Thanksgiving”, so it’s not Christmas!

Right.

So what’s the difference for you? Let’s ask an American!

Sure.

Well, Thanksgiving is the start of the Christmas season, traditionally it was the time where the families started decorating, started celebrating, there was Christmas in the air, starting with Thanksgiving. There’s actually a really big parade in New York City called the Macy’s Day Parade on Thanksgiving day and at the end of the parade Santa Claus arrives.

Ahhh!

So yeah, there’s definitely a connection between Christmas and Thanksgiving and as well there’s a big feast, but they are separate, they’re definitely separate, because Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday where Christmas obviously is.

So Thanksgiving, if I know the history well enough, is because it goes back to the first settlers from England who came over?

Exactly. To Massachusetts.

And they gave thanks to the first harvest and the fact that they were… they had food on the table, right?

Well, they actually gave thanks to the Native Americans, because when they came over on The Mayflower, they encountered a lot of difficulties. It was cold, they weren’t familiar with the type of food present. They didn’t know what they could eat and what they couldn’t eat. And the Native Americans helped them survive the first year. So it was actually the first November after, supposedly tradition says, that they celebrated the first Thanksgiving to give thanks for helping them.

Okay, and so Thanksgiving, would you say it’s bigger than Christmas or is just all part of the same festivity?

In some ways I think it is bigger, because everyone, most everyone in America celebrates, you don’t have to be Christina to celebrate Thanksgiving, and also Thanksgiving dinners tend to be very large. So, you can have Thanksgiving with your friends, your family, people that you just met, it’s… people want to be together, they encourage… for example this year, I’ll be joining my high school friend for Thanksgiving. And there’ll be other family and friends there and her brother, so I think Christmas tends to be more with the family.

Okay, interesting, and so Christmas is almost an optional for Americans, would you say?

Well, everything is celebrated in America!

Ha ha ha!

Holidays it’s just it’s a … starting with Halloween, and Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then … the holidays are celebrated, so Christmas is optional, but I’d say the majority of people take part in the celebrations. It might be… there’s also more awareness of the fact that there are other religions in the United States, so a lot of the events around Christmas are “holiday” events.

Right. Yeah, I said before, thanks to American cinema we have this image of the Turkey for Thanksgiving, but do you think generally Americans eat something different on Christmas compared to Thanksgiving?

Yeah, there’s often the Christmas ham.

Okay.

Yeah, in my family there was always the Christmas ham, so yeah there’s more flexibility with Christmas. Plus there are traditional dishes for Thanksgiving, the pumpkin and squash dishes are always present, pecan pies, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, with your turkey, stuffing, which is a delicious cooked bread pudding.

Yeah we have that in England too with lots of herbs in it, so it’s really tasty.

Christmas can be just kind of more of a general feast, there are other items on the table.

And let’s talk about the kids, because these festivities are often for children. So Christmas… We have Santa Claus who comes and has the presents for the children, and the children get lots of presents from their parents and family. And what about Thanksgiving, is that a time for giving presents?

No, no, Thanksgiving no. There really aren’t presents. Kids, sometimes in school, I remember would dress up and have like Indian headbands, or there would be recitals with turkeys, so definitely festive, and there are decorations, but generally speaking there isn’t an exchange of gifts, that comes later with Christmas.

And Thanksgiving, if I understand, is just one day?

Thanksgiving is one day, although the schools will close sometimes a little early. Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November, so there is a break, a long weekend. It’s a festive holiday, again it only happens on that Thursday, but you might end up eating leftovers, so it continues and then the tradition has it, which I think most people in the world have heard of it now, Black Friday.

Yes!

So it kind of continues for people who don’t need to work. There are events on Black Friday, there is also a tradition to have a lot of American Football games, on Thursday and Friday and over that weekend and in some of the bigger Universities they actually have parades, California, Florida. So there are some other events around Thanksgiving.

Well, americans in general I think, are never afraid of throwing a big party

The more the merrier!

The more the merrier, exactly!

Well, listen let’s talk about you, because you’re going back to Boston for this Thanksgiving, you’re going back on Tuesday. And how does that make you feel?

I’m excited, I’m excited, I… when I thought about taking the trip I decided to make sure to be with my family and to be at home for Thanksgiving, so I found a 10 day window of time with all my responsibilities here in Italy that I could go. And I chose to go for Thanksgiving versus Christmas because I personally enjoy it more. I also enjoy eating American food.

You need to be a bit more specific!

The Thanksgiving dinner with the turkey and cranberry sauce. Cranberries are harvested in Massachusetts, it’s a local berry. Which here in Italy you might be able to find it but in its original form, it’s probably more of a jelly or a sauce. 

So I just love the combination … It’s comfort food for me. It brings me back into, you know, my childhood and all the times that, you know, we had holidays together, so between mash potatoes and pumpkin pie, it’s nice to look forward to, kind of my origins, you know?

Yeah, sure. Touching base!

Well I hope you have a wonderful trip to Boston and I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving and to anyone who’s listening to this podcast who may be in America or American, then Happy Thanksgiving! Can you tell us what is the phrase that you use in America to wish someone a happy Thanksgiving?

You can say Happy Thanksgiving, that’s the most common, sometimes you can say happy Turkey day.

Ah, right, OK!

Right, so it’s just kind of a spin off.

It’s not so happy for the turkeys!

Right! In fact there’s an interesting little story that the President every year pardons one turkey, so that he lets one turkey continue living, so you might actually see an article of that the day before Thanksgiving, because every year, this year Biden will pardon, he will let free, let live one turkey.

Fantastic!

Well, have a wonderful trip, and again, happy Turkey Day, happy Thanksgiving!

Thanks Nick, I’ll see you when I get back

Ok, see you soon, take care, thanks Liz!

Bye!