what is thanksgiving? i'm from ireland?
968440
It is a holiday that began with the first English settlers in America. Their voyage was long and hard, and after they arrived, they nearly starved in the first year. But the second year they had an excellent harvest, and they were thus blessed with a relative bounty of food to eat. They decided to have a party to celebrate 1) their good fortune for a good harvest, 2) the now fairly obvious fact that the colony would be successful, and 3) their faith in God, not necessarily in that order. They invited the local Indians to the celebration and they all had a very good time. Thereafter they decided to repeat the party every year, to mostly celebrate their good harvest. In today's world, it is a family gathering time that is usually free from the commercialism that has grown up around Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, etc. The traditional dish is roast turkey, because it is a large bird that is native to America and was thought to be the main dish at the original celebration. Other traditional foods for Thanksgiving include pumpkin pie and perhaps something made out of corn (maize), something made from sweet potatoes, and something made out of cranberries since these were the newfound foods that are native to the American continent that the early settlers were able to obtain in quantity, and they were largely new and different from what they were used to eating in the British Isles. If you are a new arrival in America, please have a happy Thanksgiving! Perhaps you can also celebrate your own safe travel across the Atlantic to the new world!
899490
st patrick's day in ireland isn't as big as it is in the states.  sure, there are parades and drunken-ness, but since it is a national holiday, most things close so there is less to do.  but school is out, so that is a plus :).  i assume it is similar to mardi gras in france compared to new orleans...\n\nit's funny.  no one in ireland eats corned beef.  i had never heard of it until we visited america.  and nothing on st. patrick's day is dyed green - no rivers and no beer... guiness is too dark to dye anyway :)
389664
Thanksgiving, at it's most basic, is a harvest festival to thank GOD[1] and neighbors for providing enough food to last through the winter. Today, it is more of a celebration of abundance: whether of food, friends, or other 'blessings'.\n\nYou can have Thanksgiving at someone's house by cooking a large meal there on the fourth Thursday in November (US) and inviting friends and family to share in it. Different families have traditional meals, though a typical modern dinner might include Turkey, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, a vegetable dish, a jello dish, and Pumpkin Pie.\n\n\n[1] Since Thanksgiving (as such) was a Colonial American celebration, this would be the Christian God as followed by the majority of the settlers at the time. As Thanksgiving is analogous to harvest festivals occuring in many other religions, this designation is not necessarily exclusive
608162
It's the day that we Irish Americans celebrate our heritage. Sadly, our ancestors decided to lose their identity and come to America. Unfortunately, here we are in the politically correct cesspool, that is over-sympathetic and over-sensitive towards every cause on the face of the earth, but there's nothing that I can do about it right now at least. The land of the free-ride and the home of what used to be a great, united nation. The America that my father grew up in and the one that I grew up in seemingly disappeared. It's getting to where I don't even recognize my own hometown anymore.\n\nAlso, about the actual holiday: They do celebrate it in Ireland. I have a friend who went there this year and he celebrated it there. He said that he had the time of his life.    \n\nSo.....with all of that being said, HAPPY BELATED ST. PATRICK'S DAY! ERIN GO BRAGH! Don't forget, make the world a better place and buy a Patty a Guinness, lol. Slan!
187027
I love thanksgiving.  Turkey is great.  \nIf you are talking about the country, I wanna go there, it looks like a really cool place to visit.
912801
Thanksgiving is the national day of...thanksgiving.  It was made a holiday by President Lincoln to help heal the scars of the Civil War.  Meant to symbolize the thanksgiving feast the Pilgrims had with the Native Americans after the winter and near-drought of the first year of settlement (the Native Americans basically kept the settlers alive, introducing them to native crops such as corn and lima beans and regional seafood like lobster and cod), the feast is actually an invitation for families to come back together and for the nation itself to put aside the bickering for just one day and eat and enjoy each other just for the sake of family.  Unfortunately, the pureness of the day is tainted by the fact that it marks the beginning of the Christmas buying season, but what can we do about that?  Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November.\n\nI'm not sure what I'm thankful for yet; I haven't made up my mind.  There are so many things I am grateful for, but that one thing I am thankful for...I need to put more thought into it.
743936
This year, US Thanksgiving is on Nov. 23.
511513
In Canada Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. Unlike the American tradition of remembering Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest. The harvest season falls earlier in Canada compared to the United States due to the simple fact that Canada is further north.
423887
Holidays are celebrations of past events.  They give us a chance to do all the traditional things passed down year after year after that special past event.\n\nExamples: Christmas is a celebration of Christ's birth, Easter is a celebration of Christ's resurrection, Thanksgiving is a celebration of the Pilgrims' and Native Americans' first thanksgiving meal, President's day is a celebration of the lives of great presidents, Independence day is the celebration of American independence, etc.
898542
Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November.  While Thanksgiving itself is a single day, the holiday always includes the following Friday, making for a four-day weekend.  \n\nThe holiday originated, according to legend, with the settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1620s.  Their first winter was terribly hard, and they suffered greatly due to ignorance of the climate, soil and local growing and hunting conditions.  According to the myth, they made friends with the local native American tribes, who taught them how to recognize local fruits, vegetables and game, including pumpkins, maize, cranberries, and turkey.\n\nAt the end of the next harvest, the colonists proclaimed a great feast of thanksgiving and honored the native American tribes that had helped them survive the previous winter.  It is still celebrated as a day to give thanks for the good things that have happened during the preceding year.\n\nIn practice, Thanksgiving is a huge feast including a number of foods native to North America -- roast turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and others.  This feast is always eaten on Thursday, though the leftovers can last, depending on the size of the household, for weeks.  \n\nIn recent years, Thanksgiving has also marked the start, in earnest, of the Christmas merchandising season.  The Macy's department store has, since the 1930s, sponsored a Thanksgiving Day parade in New York, with large inflated characters interspersed among marching bands and civic groups.  The Friday after Thanksgiving has become known as "Black Friday" and is typically the single largest retail sales day in the United States.  \n\nIn reaction to what many people see as the overcommercialization of this holiday (not to mention modern life in general), recent years have seen a growth in Buy Nothing Day, a movement to reverse the hype and mania for rabid consumption that Thanksgiving has come to represent (particularly in its "gateway holiday" role as the opening of the Christmas bacchanalia).  Originating in Canada, Buy Nothing day has come to signify a "detox" from the incessant drone of marketing, merchandising and status.  \n\nSpeaking of Canada, there is also a Thanksgiving in Canada, but it's celebrated on the second Monday in October, making for a three-day weekend.  Both the Canadian and the US Thanksgiving days are believed to be derived from the British Harvest Festivals, held at the end of summer since ancient times.\n\nYou can read more in the Wikipedia article I posted below, and also in the Adbusters Web site on Buy Nothing Day.
187410
No we don't, we dont dye our rivers green or drink green beer, we dont sit down to a feast of cabbage and corned beef, or go around pinching someone who isnt wearing green. These are all American customs. In Ireland, the older folks go to mass, the rest of us celebrate with the Patrick's day festival, which lasts for 5 days. On the day itself, we go to the parade, then hit the pub and dance the night away. Check out www.stpatricksday.ie and see all that went on over the week.
147854
I am in the exact same boat as you. I too am very irish, but choose not to follow the catholic religion nor do I drink. I do however, love St. Patricks day. It is a day to celebrate about beig happy and loving your life. I need no other reason.
873616
Thanksgiving is an American holiday. That doesn't even cover a majority of Christians worldwide, let alone everyone else who calls someone "God".
846531
Christmas. You get all the good food associated with Thanksgiving, only for Christmas you get at least three full days of it. (Christmas Eve with Mom's family. Christmas at home. Boxing Day with Dad's family. All three consisting of different kinds of feasts!)\n\nAnd then PRESENTS to go along with it...what's not to love!!!
226642
'Cos people like being Irish I guess :)
725825
It's about giving Thanks for the things we have. To be cherful and be together with family and friends. To share what we have with other's who do not have so much. It's about the feeling you get when you help some one out of troubles. It's when you feel the love that comes from spreading the cheers. That is what Thanksgiving is all about.
738720
Thanksgiving for me is a 2-3 day marathon of cooking and baking for my friends and family(my door is open to everyone on Thanksgiving ,I tell every one to bring their Appite) It is a time for rembering those long ago Thanksgivings when me and my father would kick Mom out of the kitchen and cook up a feast, just the two of us.....now that he has passed on I carry on our tradition by making Feast for all who come to my door\nIt's a time of rembering with great fondness my grandfather who loved this time of year, with all the leaves showing their color...it's a reminder to take an extra moment to be Thankful (and be aware) of the beauty of Nature around us.\nIt's a time to enjoy and re-connect /catch up with  with family and friends, some who we haven't seen in a while.\n....and the left overs Wow...sometimes I have a lot!...I make up dinner plates and freeze some of them for quick microwave dinners  and I give some  to neighbors (or co-workers) who may not have anyone... and were too shy to come over to my house.....and of course all who come get something to take home even if it's only a pie or some baked goods.