Defining Thanksgiving

Wikipedia - Thanksgiving Day - is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Traditionally, it has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. While there was an underlying religious element in the original celebration, Thanksgiving today is primarily identified as a secular holiday.^[1]Although earlier feasts are known to have taken place, Thanksgiving as it is known and celebrated today derives from a joint celebration between the Pilgrim settlers of Plymouth, Massachusetts and members of the Native American Patuxet tribe of the Wampanoag people in 1621.
After the no see-ums chased us from the Tgiving Potluck, we invited cruisers Tim, Melinda & Steven over to Honey Ryder for an after party. As Aussies and Kiwis, they admitted that they had to look up Thanksgiving Day on Wikipedia. Seems strange but we forget that it's primarily an American/Canadian holiday.
Earlier in the day, we visited with a Canadian Caliber 47 cruiser. I commented that this would be his second TGiving since the Canadian holiday is in Oct. His comment was that theirs isn't nearly as big a deal as the American one because of all the Black Friday stuff. Tom and I were horrified. OMG! So the rest of the world thinks the USA Thanksgiving is one day of non-stop eating and one day of non-stop shopping. I assured him that Black Friday is NOT part of the Thanksgiving holiday tradition. However now that I think about it....wow, how sad are we. Anyway...the after party was great fun as we discussed sailing/cruising adventures, boats, travels in the USA, our hometowns, slang words and many other interesting topics.
Saturday Tim and Melinda popped around again to invite us to a lovely steak dinner on their boat. Cruiser are the best!