Gratitude on thanksgiving day.- Festivities

Today we will talk about gratitude on Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Liberia, as well as unofficially in Brazil and the Philippines. It is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada, the fourth Thursday of November in the United States, and around the same time in other countries. 

Although Thanksgiving has religious and cultural roots (it originated as a day of giving gratitude for the harvest and the prior year), it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well. On this occasion, families and friends usually gather around a table to share a meal together. A huge roasted or baked turkey is the traditional main meal for dinner. There’s a video for you if you are interested in finding out why they eat turkey, and some recipes, too.

Before taking steps into teaching ourselves how to practice gratitude, let’s first take a look at some fascinating facts related to this classical, mostly american festivity. Also you can find at the end of the post (descarga de actividades relacionadas) a list of vocabulary to train yourself into becoming more fluent in English.

1. A VERY POPULAR HOLIDAY. Thanksgiving is the second most popular holiday among American adults, after only Christmas and surpassing Halloween. Eating Thanksgiving dinner is a popular tradition and it involves carving turkey and making wishes.
2. MISSING FORKS. Did you know that the first Thanksgiving dinner took place without forks? The tool was not widely used in North America until about the time of the American Revolution, although it’s supposed both knives and spoons found a place on their table. Can you picture trying to eat a turkey without a fork? 
3. BREAKING WISHBONES. During Thanksgiving dinner, a Y-shaped bone from the bird is removed and laid away to dry. After everyone has finished their dinner, two persons set new year’s wishes and divide the “Thanksgiving wishbone” into two pieces. Most Americans think that whoever gets the larger piece of the wishbone will have good luck and have all of his or her desires realized in the next year.
4. TONES OF TURKEY. On Thanksgiving, Americans consume over 720 million pounds of turkey, which translates to approximately 45 million birds that are not eligible for a pardon. They weigh an average of 16 pounds, with the largest Tom ever weighing in at 86 pounds.
5. A TURKEY NAMED TOM. Benjamin Franklin, legend has it, called turkeys “Tom” after Thomas Jefferson. He allegedly wanted the turkey to be America’s national bird, but Thomas Jefferson believed the more noble eagle should represent the country. After losing, Franklin is claimed to have named the turkey “Tom” in honor of his adversary. It’s a terrific story—so excellent, in fact, that we wish it were real. Instead, the less intriguing fact is that masculine animals, such as cats, are occasionally called “Tom.”
6. THE PARDON. President George H.W. Bush established the yearly practice of pardoning the White House Thanksgiving turkey in 1989. But it was President John F. Kennedy who let the first bird off the hook in 1963, saying, “We’ll just let this one grow.” This is our Thanksgiving gift to him.”
7. TURKEY TALK-LINE. What do you do when your turkey is crispy on the exterior but frozen solid on the inside? Dial the Turkey Talk-Line! They answer over 100,000 turkey-related queries each November and December.
8. SARAH JOSEPHA HALE. The woman who composed “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was also the one who made Thanksgiving an official holiday. After 17 years of pressuring the government, writer Sarah Josepha Hale successfully persuaded Abraham Lincoln to make it a national holiday in 1863.
9. DRINKSGIVING. The Wednesday preceding Thanksgiving is referred to as “Drinksgiving.” Traditionally, Thanksgiving Eve is the busiest bar night of the year.
10. BLACK FRIDAY. Ironically, the term “Black Friday” was intended to discourage people from buying on the day after Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that Black Friday is now one of the busiest shopping days of the year, the Philadelphia Police Department began referring to the day of shopping discounts as Black Friday in 1966 in the goal of discouraging people from contributing to the traffic and chaos.

As we have said, every Thanksgiving, family and friends gather to enjoy a Thanksgiving feast and express gratitude for the blessings received in the previous year. Every year, this popular holiday provides us with an opportunity to begin a thankfulness practice, which has several mental health advantages even if we only do it for one weekend with family and friends. It may well be worth the effort to develop a gratitude practice with regular activities as a tangible step to improving your mental and emotional health.

Gratitude is described as a social glue that strengthens ties (between friends, family, and love partners) and it acts as the foundation of human civilization. By expressing thankfulness to loved ones on a regular basis, people would benefit from including gratitude as a core component of preserving ties with them. And, in terms of its impact on physical health, the practice of gratitude is linked to changes in blood pressure, glycemic and asthma control, dietary habits, and sleep quality.

There are things you can do in your life to proactively generate emotions of appreciation for yourself with the experiences you currently have, as well as new experiences that will bring more feelings of thankfulness into your life and the lives of people around you. The following are tried-and-true methods for increasing appreciation in your life and relationships. Some are easy techniques that you may try on your own to deliver a one-time burst of happiness; others are activities that can be done on a daily basis to boost your mood.

• SMILE! Studies show that the simple act of smiling can actually change the way you feel, regardless of why you are smiling.
• COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS. Make a list of five things for which you are thankful for.
• MENTAL SUBTRACTION. Ponder your life without a good thing.
• WRITE A GRATITUDE LETTER OR PLAN A GRATITUDE VISIT. Writing and mailing a note of thanks or paying a gratitude visit to someone you appreciate what they have done for you, may offer wonderful sentiments to the individuals you admire, as well as even more pleasant sensations to you.
• THREE GOOD THINGS. Write down three things that went well and identify the causes of those positives.
• DEATH REFLECTION. Imagine your own death to reflect on and appreciate the advantages of life.
• EXPERIENTIAL CONSUMPTION. Make a shift from spending money on things to investing in experiences.

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