How is Thanksgiving celebrated in the US?

How is Thanksgiving celebrated in the US? Photo / Getty Images

Brian Thacker has been living in the States for five years and experienced every type of ‘Thanksgiving’ the country has to offer. This year, it’s celebrated on November 28.

Is that what I think it is? It can’t be. I’m having my first Thanksgiving with my wife’s family in Minnesota, and on the dining room table next to the tray of mac ‘n’ cheese (which is more cheese than mac) is a big bowl of sweet potatoes with, wait for it … melted marshmallows on top. What are they going to put on the roast turkey? M&Ms?

Thankfully, the roast turkey came out and it was just a roast turkey, but then I must feign delight when I try the pride of the mid-west: the green bean casserole. It’s like something from a 1970s Kaftan Dinner Party Cookbook. Here’s the recipe: Mix a can of fluorescent green beans with Campbells cream of mushroom soup and cover with a whole packet of French-fried onions (that have a use-by date somewhere in the 2040s) then chuck it into the oven until it’s perfectly soggy.

Thanksgiving marks the start of the holiday season. Photo / Brian Thacker

So, if marshmallows are a side dish, it makes perfect sense to use pumpkins for dessert. Admittedly, I do love pumpkin pie, although I did skip the very popular Cool Whip on top. The ingredients sound like a science experiment. What happens if we mix polysorbate 60, sorbitan monostearate and sodium polyphosphate together? The star of the show, however, is the turkey. And Thanksgiving isn’t Thanksgiving without serving up a giant roast bird that the leftovers will be used for turkey sandwiches for the following two weeks. Incidentally, Minnesota is the turkey state. They produce around 39 million turkeys annually. Now, that’s a lot of gobbling.

Some of the frozen turkeys in the supermarket are big enough to feed a family of 32, but that’s nothing compared to the poultry in people’s front yards. The house across the road from my wife’s parents’ place had a rafter of three-metre-high blow-up turkeys lounging about on the lawn. Or you can dress up like a turkey and go for a run. On the morning of Thanksgiving, a lot of cities around the country have a Turkey Trot. It’s usually a 5km run - or a 5km waddle if you’re a turkey.

The largest turkey producer in the US is Minnesota, with around 39 million turkeys raised annually. Photo / 123rf

Because Thanksgiving is a secular holiday it’s bigger (and many say better) than Christmas. Mostly because you don’t have to go through all that opening of crappy presents and pretending you like them, but it’s also one day that families all get together. Although one family got a bit ripped off at the first-ever Thanksgiving in 1621 when the Pilgrims and American Indians got together to reflect on what they were grateful for over the past year.

Turkey Day is a family affair, but it’s also a great time to visit the States - just steer clear of flying either side of the holiday when millions of aunties and cousins jet across the country to be with family. The Wednesday before and Sunday after are affectionately known as “amateur day” (as in people who have no idea how to go through security or board a plane). You’ll find that hotels are often emptier and cheaper, and the bucket-list tourist sights aren’t filled to the brim.

There are also some must-see and must-do Thanksgiving spectacles. If you think giant blow-up turkeys are cool, wait to you see a three-storey high helium-filled Ronald McDonald or a behemothic Bluey at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. The annual event has taken place since 1924, and if you’re lucky you might get to see one of the giant balloons go haywire. A few years ago, Barney the dinosaur collapsed on its handlers and was stabbed repeatedly by police to release the helium and prevent further chaos. There are other Thanksgiving parades, including the biggest in the country in Chicago and the oldest in Philadelphia.

The day before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days in the US. Photo / Brian Thacker

In New York you’ll find ‘tis the season to be jolly as a lot of Christmas decorations, including at the big department stores, are up by Thanksgiving. Christmas markets are in full swing too, and at the festive Winter Village at Bryant Park you can buy lots of cutesy Christmas stuff and get suitably merry with some roasted chestnuts and mulled wine. The skating rink at the Rockefeller Center opens in October, so you can skate around while singing along to It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Although, the famous spruced-up Christmas spruce doesn’t get lit up until a week after Thanksgiving.

The skating rink at the Rockefeller Center opens in October. Photo / Brian Thacker

The day after Thanksgiving - if you can lift yourself up off the couch after eating all that pumpkin pie - is the biggest sale day of the year. America is the birthplace of Black Friday and it’s a holiday shopping frenzy across the country.

If you want to go big you need to go to the country’s biggest mall: The Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With no sales tax on clothes, the mall attracts 40 million scrimpers a year. The parking lot is so big that each section is named after one of the 50 states - and there’s a full-blown amusement park smack in the middle of the mall. I was crazy enough to go on Black Friday, but the biggest problem I had was remembering what state I left my car in. Was it Alabama or Arkansas?

The Mall of America in Minnesota draws 40 million annual visitors and has an indoor amusement park. Photo / Brian Thacker

DETAILS

Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.

Brian was born in England, grew up in Australia and now lives in Minnesota.