Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. It's always on the 4th (fourth) Thursday of November. It is a national holiday. Many people have a 4 day weekend: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Many, many families get together for a big dinner. The traditional Thanksgiving Day main dish is a roast turkey with stuffing (オーブンで焼いた七面鳥, 詰め物付き）. Popular side dishes are sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans (インゲン豆）, and bread rolls. And the most popular dessert is pumpkin pie.
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cranberry sauce
pumpkin pie
Yum!
Thanksgiving is a very important family holiday, similar in importance to お盆 in Japan.
When I taught first year students at Oita University, one of my classes was on Thursdays, so I was always in the classroom on Thanksgiving Day. Every year, I asked the students to make a list of 20 things that they were thankful for. They always complained. "Twenty things?! I can't think of twenty things!" But I told them to try, and I gave them some hints. "Can you see? Do your eyes work? Can you walk? Do you have enough food every day? Have you ever experienced war? Do you like sunsets?" The room would get quiet as the students made their Thanksgiving lists.
I would take up their papers at the end of class and read them later at home. Some of the things on their lists were so beautiful and inspiring.
My life
My parents
My grandparents
My ancestors
The earth
The sun
The moon
Peace
Kindness
Love
God
Some of the things on their lists were very practical things:
My smartphone
Kotatsu
Clean water to drink
Medicine, hospitals, doctors, nurses
My teachers, school, classmates
Electricity
I always enjoyed reading their Thanksgiving lists.
What are you thankful for
To end, here is another painting by the same artist from this post.
(That was a Christmas painting.) Here is Norman Rockwell's famous Thanksgiving Day painting:
As you can see, it was made into a postage stamp.
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!
