Thanksgiving Traditions & Events The main traditions of the Thanksgiving season include:
Giving out free Thanksgiving dinners for the penurious, arranging food drives, and giving out charitable aids in general. The Salvation Army is particularly well known for recruiting volunteers to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the less fortunate.
Going to church services where congregants offer thanks to God for the year's blessings that He bestowed. These are often held almost a weekend prior, the day of, or the weekend subsequent to Thanksgiving Day. In addition, the praise of grace on Thanksgiving dinner at homes is also one of the highly traditional moments of the holiday.
Dining on great Thanksgiving dinners and on leftovers for the rest of the week. Turkey is majorly the core of the meal, and is mostly roasted or baked. However, some of the people now choose to deep fat fry or smoke the turkey. In addition, the turkey stuffed is also popular with mashed potatoes with turkey gravy, butternut squash, corn on the cob, candied yams, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and pumpkin pie are some of the most popular eaten items. On 2014 Thanksgiving Day, Americans spent almost $2.9 billion, ate around 51 million turkeys, and ate much more food than any other day of the year.
There are some events on Thanksgiving weekend that you should know and might wish to be a part of it:
Watching the famous U.S. President "pardons" a turkey, on television, provided by the National Turkey Federation. This tradition became a yearly reprise after Ronald Reagan, in 1987, delivered an official presidential pardon to a turkey and instead sent it over to a zoo.
Watching college and professional football games on television. For has long as it has existed, the NFL has been playing ‘turkey bowl’s, and college football playoffs are quite celebratory on the Friday and Saturday right after Thanksgiving.
Attending or watching a Thanksgiving parade. In New York, Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the most popular. It has many giant balloons, floats, and a Macy's Santa Claus to notify that the Christmas shopping season has begun. US’s Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit is also quite huge and popular, and there are several parades in many other major U.S. cities. Shopping on Black Friday is another retreat, the day after Thanksgiving when mega sales start everywhere and stores stay open till late. Since 2005, this period has been the
busiest shopping time of the year. In 2014, $51 billion was spent by 133 million shoppers. www.researchomatic.com/new-research/thanksgiving-45458.html