What are your Turkey Day traditions?
Every family celebrates Thanksgiving differently. What are your holiday traditions? Look at these photos and videos to see what 15 families from all different backgrounds across the country cook on this day that speaks to their heritage. Then discuss the questions from our related Picture Prompt: How do you and your family or community celebrate Thanksgiving? What does the food you serve or the things you do that day say about where you are from? The Silver household celebrates Thanksgiving a little differently than the typical family. We spend our holiday roasting ducks instead of turkey, and steaming dumplings rather than sweet potatoes. I’ll never forget the first time my family decided to try something a little different for dinner. My dad had no idea what he was doing and couldn’t figure out how to separate the skin of the duck from the meat. My mom then had the crazy idea to use a bike pump to solve our problem. Since everyone else in my family was disgusted by the idea of pumping a dead duck full of air, I ended up having to do it. That was definitely one of the weirdest half-hours of my life. Despite it being an unpleasant chore, my family has continued to use a bike pump every year since. Although my friends may give me odd looks when I tell them we aren’t serving the usual “Turkey dinner,” I’m glad we have our own traditions. It’s what makes my Thanksgiving holidays so memorable. Students, share a “snapshot” of your most memorable Thanksgiving. What makes that day stand out in your mind? Are you looking forward to Thanksgiving? Or do you dread the holiday? Do you have certain Thanksgiving traditions? Do you think they are the same or different for other people in your school or community? In this special Thanksgiving Student Opinion, we have selected four articles from The Times that each takes on a different perspective about Thanksgiving. Read the four excerpts and choose the one that resonates most with your experience of Thanksgiving and share your response to the question: What does Thanksgiving mean to you? In “Turn Off Your Phone for Thanksgiving,” David Leonhardt writes about using Thanksgiving as a time to disconnect from phones, tablets and computers and to focus on connecting with others: This week, Americans will endure flight delays, traffic jams and other logistical miseries to spend time with family and friends. And when the holiday weekend is ending, many will lament that they don’t get to spend enough time with those relatives and friends. But during the weekend itself, these same lamenters will spend a lot of time ignoring the people around them and distractedly staring into their phones. They will get a notification and disappear down a digital rabbit hole of Facebook posts, text messages and fantasy-football updates. They will monitor the comments on the photos they just posted, instead of engaging with the human beings in those photos.
Many of us have a complicated relationship with our phones. We enjoy them in the moment. Yet when we reflect on all the time we spend looking at a tiny screen, we feel lousy about it. We pine for a less addictive relationship with the online world.
So let me make a suggestion for this Thanksgiving weekend: Turn off your phone, and keep it off for a full 24 hours. I predict you’ll be surprised by how much you’ll like it. The nutritionist and writer Christy Harrison acknowledges that Thanksgiving can be an emotionally overwhelming and stressful time and that for some of us, just enjoying food without regret is the best way to remain in contact with our feelings. In “Go Ahead. Eat Your Holiday Feelings,” Ms. Harrison writes:
The Thanksgiving table can be an emotional battlefield. Whether because of resurfaced sibling rivalry, blended-family tensions or mealtime political debate, the togetherness that we hope will inspire gratitude is notorious for causing stress instead. One subtle insult or off-color comment from a relative, and it begins: You feel your blood pressure rising, your palms sweating, your face getting hot. Suddenly, you’re inhaling the sliver of pumpkin pie you’d just been picking at a minute ago. Next, you’re going back for a second big slice. Your stomach already feels full, but you can’t stop eating.
If you’re like many Americans, you then feel guilty. You chastise yourself for handling the difficult moment the wrong way — the “weak” way. For “eating your feelings.”
But eating emotionally, which conventional wisdom says is dysfunctional and even pathological, is actually just a normal part of being human. We don’t turn to food in response to negative feelings because we’re broken or out of control, or because food is addictive. We do it because it’s one of many ways in which we (even the most balanced eaters) cope, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty harmless one.
We should embrace eating in response to our feelings — pleasure, excitement, sadness and, yes, that special brand of family-inspired stress — at Thanksgiving, and all year long. In the 2018 article “The First Thanksgiving,” Julia Moskin features the stories of refugee families celebrating Thanksgiving in America for the first time, balancing their own food culture and traditions with the holiday:
This fall, Jana began prekindergarten, and fans of Ms. Anjari’s food helped her publish a cookbook of Syrian recipes. So she decided to take a test run at making her first Thanksgiving feast.
In a year of a pandemic, racial reckoning and a tense election, how should we celebrate? How should teenagers hold the complicated history of this holiday alongside the devastation and loss of this year?
Like many people who have recently arrived in America from other countries, Ms. Anjari, 33, found the holiday a bit perplexing. At home, she said, family celebrations and feast days are reserved for religious events. “People do things in so many different ways here,” she said: how they dress, how they raise children, how they worship. “I was surprised that there’s a holiday that everyone celebrates.”
Before she even began cooking, there were many mysteries to be solved, with the help of people like Jennifer Sit, her co-author on the cookbook; Mira Evnine, who assisted with the book’s photography; and Dave Mammen, part of the refugee task force at Rutgers Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side.
Were the apples really going to be baked with cinnamon, a spice that Ms. Anjari uses with meat and chicken? Why would you roast a bird whole — how would it get evenly cooked that way? How can macaroni and cheese, one of her children’s favorite dinners, be a side dish? Were the mashed potatoes not going to be seasoned with a little garlic and a lot of caramelized onions, the way she makes them?
“Without it, there isn’t much flavor, no?” she asked, speaking through an interpreter, knitting her expression into a question, as she so often must in her new life.
For some people, Thanksgiving is not a celebration, but rather a time of mourning and healing from the colonial roots of the holiday. In “Thanksgiving for Native Americans: Four Voices on a Complicated Holiday,” Julie Turkewitz compiles the essays of four Native American writers and activists, including Jacqueline Keeler, who writes: I see, in the First Thanksgiving story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism. Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused. Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving Day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.
And the healing process can begin. Students, choose the article you relate to the most, then tell us: How do you feel about Thanksgiving? Does the holiday make you feel grateful? Nostalgic? Angry? Lonesome? Connected? Do you think these articles encompass the breadth of Thanksgiving experiences? Do you relate to one more than the others? Why? What are other stories of Thanksgiving that you think are important to tell? Can you find any of those stories in the Times archive?
Now tell us, what does Thanksgiving mean to you? Why? Does it mean something different to other people in your family or community? Has the meaning of Thanksgiving changed for you over time? Are there certain Thanksgiving traditions that you want to preserve throughout your life? Are there other Thanksgiving traditions that you would like to create as you get older? What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Is it a time to come together with family? Is it a special meal with delicious food? Does Thanksgiving make you think of long days stuck in traffic or suffering through tense conversations with family members?
As coronavirus cases continue to spike around the United States and additional Covid-19 safety precautions are put in place, how will your Thanksgiving be different this year? And, should we rethink how we traditionally celebrate Thanksgiving, given the inaccuracies in the tale of Thanksgiving, and in light of a renewed focus on racial justice this year? In “How to Do Thanksgiving With Less Waste,” Priya Krishna writes about environmental activists, educators and urban farmers who are rethinking Thanksgiving with a lens of environmental justice and history: The holiday is one of the most wasteful times of the year, with 200 million pounds of turkey alone tossed out annually, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Most dinners this year will be smaller, as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the country. Yet the day’s environmental impact may still be significant — perhaps even more so, since many Americans will be serving Thanksgiving-size feasts to only a few guests. Reducing waste can be as simple as turning scraps into broth and reusing containers. But Ms. Jackson and other environmental advocates say it’s equally important to think more broadly about our relationship to the holiday, and the vast ripple effects of the waste it generates.
“Traditional Native peoples are raised with this idea that we have a responsibility for our land,” which means using all parts of a plant or animal, and fertilizing the ground with bones and shells so that food will regenerate, said Dr. Enrique Salmón, 62, a professor of American Indian studies at California State University East Bay.
The classic Thanksgiving ingredients, like turkey, pumpkin and sweet potatoes, were originally cultivated by Native Americans in ways that showed respect for the Earth. But the celebration has become commercialized, and unmindful of the nation’s violent treatment of Native Americans, said Nikki Sanchez, an Indigenous scholar and documentary filmmaker who lives on Coast Salish territory in Victoria, British Columbia. Those who celebrate need to be more aware of this, and take the time to appreciate their food. “Gratitude and abundance are reciprocal things,” said Ms. Sanchez, 33. When we take from the land, she said, we should also give back — through growing, recycling, composting and replanting. Cooking the same dishes for Thanksgiving each year also leads to mass production of ingredients like turkey and cranberries, which puts undue stress on food systems, Ms. Sanchez said. She suggested people create a menu inspired by their heritage — smoked fish from Norway, mole from Mexico. “Think of the foods that are actually representative to who you are,” she said, and “actually bringing your own identity into this holiday.”
Students, read the entire article, then tell us: Have you ever considered the environmental impact of Thanksgiving? What could you do to make your Thanksgiving more environmentally conscious? Is Thanksgiving a significant holiday for you and your family? Or is it just another day off from school? What values or traditions do you associate with Thanksgiving? What worries or frustrates you about the holiday? How do you feel about Thanksgiving this year? Are you adjusting your holiday celebrations in light of the pandemic? If so, what will be different? How do you feel about the changes that you and your family are making this year?
How do your unique Thanksgiving traditions highlight your identity, heritage and beliefs? Do you eat dishes that are specific to your family, ancestors and history? What is one dish that you enjoy preparing or eating? Describe the dish using vivid details. The article emphasizes that mindfulness around waste is “one way to help communities of color, who are often the most endangered by overflowing landfills and the air pollution and hazardous chemical runoff they create.” Are there other values or actions that you think are important to emphasize during the Thanksgiving holiday? How do you think we can be more accountable and thoughtful to others around Thanksgiving? The featured article addresses the legacy of violence toward Native Americans that is often ignored when celebrating Thanksgiving. This year, in particular, many people are talking about the devastating impact of the coronavirus on Native American communities. What role do you think acknowledging that history, and its legacy today, should play in celebrating — or choosing not to celebrate — Thanksgiving? Do you think it is important to talk about the problematic and harmful history of colonization in relation to Thanksgiving? If yes, what should that conversation look like? What actions should be taken in light of that history? What emotions do you feel as you look at the faces in that crowd? Have you ever been in a crowd waiting for a store to open after Thanksgiving? If so, what was it like? Would you do it again? The article “Black Friday Shopping: Tales From the Front Lines,” describes “what it looks and feels like at American shopping malls, retailers and discount stores,” including reporter Nick Madigan’s conversation with Barb Mulkey, a Florida woman who went shopping on Friday:
“It’s my first Black Friday shopping ever,” Ms. Mulkey said as she strolled through Macy’s, her arms laden with loot. “My neighbor talked me into it.” In previous years, reports of “crazy people” storming through retail establishments had dissuaded her from participating, she said. As it turned out, she got to see some craziness herself this time. In another store, Ms. Mulkey, a middle-school math teacher, and her neighbor, Kathy Van Singel, an orthodontist’s assistant, had been loading poinsettias into a shopping cart when, their attention diverted, someone made off with the cart, flowers and all. There were no more on the shelf. “And then I became one of those nuts,” Ms. Mulkey said. “We ended up finding some more somewhere else, so we got our poinsettias. But some woman asked me to reach a box for her, and I said, ‘You’re on your own, lady.’” Students: Read the entire article, then tell us: Have you ever witnessed or personally experienced an event like the one Ms. Mulkey describes? Why do you think Black Friday (and Thanksgiving weekend) shopping is so popular with some people? On the other hand, a related article from last week states that online shopping would likely reduce the amount of money people spent in stores on Black Friday. How does your experience or the experience of people in your life support or contradict that idea? Do you enjoy shopping in the hours and days after Thanksgiving? Why or why not? What are you most excited about giving this year? Why? Do you feel the need to shop on Black Friday? Why or why not? Have you ever been shopping on Black Friday? If so, what was that experience like? Who did you go with? Did you find it exciting or stressful? Would you go again? Why do you think ordinary shoppers turn into dangerous mobs on this day? What advice would you give to shoppers this year to avoid the mayhem that often comes with Black Friday? Finally, we know that Thanksgiving isn’t easy for everyone.
“Family drama around the holidays is such a cliché that I can probably name a dozen movies off the top of my head that start with the premise of a moderately dysfunctional clan getting together for Thanksgiving or Christmas,” begins a recent Parenting newsletter. Though the writer is addressing adults, holidays can be stressful for teenagers, too. What, if anything, has you worried about the coming Thanksgiving holiday, or any other seasonal family or community gathering? How will you cope? What tips can you offer others for making family celebrations go as smoothly as possible? What, if anything, is hard about the holidays for you?
Many of us have a complicated relationship with our phones. We enjoy them in the moment. Yet when we reflect on all the time we spend looking at a tiny screen, we feel lousy about it. We pine for a less addictive relationship with the online world.
So let me make a suggestion for this Thanksgiving weekend: Turn off your phone, and keep it off for a full 24 hours. I predict you’ll be surprised by how much you’ll like it. The nutritionist and writer Christy Harrison acknowledges that Thanksgiving can be an emotionally overwhelming and stressful time and that for some of us, just enjoying food without regret is the best way to remain in contact with our feelings. In “Go Ahead. Eat Your Holiday Feelings,” Ms. Harrison writes:
The Thanksgiving table can be an emotional battlefield. Whether because of resurfaced sibling rivalry, blended-family tensions or mealtime political debate, the togetherness that we hope will inspire gratitude is notorious for causing stress instead. One subtle insult or off-color comment from a relative, and it begins: You feel your blood pressure rising, your palms sweating, your face getting hot. Suddenly, you’re inhaling the sliver of pumpkin pie you’d just been picking at a minute ago. Next, you’re going back for a second big slice. Your stomach already feels full, but you can’t stop eating.
If you’re like many Americans, you then feel guilty. You chastise yourself for handling the difficult moment the wrong way — the “weak” way. For “eating your feelings.”
But eating emotionally, which conventional wisdom says is dysfunctional and even pathological, is actually just a normal part of being human. We don’t turn to food in response to negative feelings because we’re broken or out of control, or because food is addictive. We do it because it’s one of many ways in which we (even the most balanced eaters) cope, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s a pretty harmless one.
We should embrace eating in response to our feelings — pleasure, excitement, sadness and, yes, that special brand of family-inspired stress — at Thanksgiving, and all year long. In the 2018 article “The First Thanksgiving,” Julia Moskin features the stories of refugee families celebrating Thanksgiving in America for the first time, balancing their own food culture and traditions with the holiday:
This fall, Jana began prekindergarten, and fans of Ms. Anjari’s food helped her publish a cookbook of Syrian recipes. So she decided to take a test run at making her first Thanksgiving feast.
In a year of a pandemic, racial reckoning and a tense election, how should we celebrate? How should teenagers hold the complicated history of this holiday alongside the devastation and loss of this year?
Like many people who have recently arrived in America from other countries, Ms. Anjari, 33, found the holiday a bit perplexing. At home, she said, family celebrations and feast days are reserved for religious events. “People do things in so many different ways here,” she said: how they dress, how they raise children, how they worship. “I was surprised that there’s a holiday that everyone celebrates.”
Before she even began cooking, there were many mysteries to be solved, with the help of people like Jennifer Sit, her co-author on the cookbook; Mira Evnine, who assisted with the book’s photography; and Dave Mammen, part of the refugee task force at Rutgers Presbyterian Church on the Upper West Side.
Were the apples really going to be baked with cinnamon, a spice that Ms. Anjari uses with meat and chicken? Why would you roast a bird whole — how would it get evenly cooked that way? How can macaroni and cheese, one of her children’s favorite dinners, be a side dish? Were the mashed potatoes not going to be seasoned with a little garlic and a lot of caramelized onions, the way she makes them?
“Without it, there isn’t much flavor, no?” she asked, speaking through an interpreter, knitting her expression into a question, as she so often must in her new life.
For some people, Thanksgiving is not a celebration, but rather a time of mourning and healing from the colonial roots of the holiday. In “Thanksgiving for Native Americans: Four Voices on a Complicated Holiday,” Julie Turkewitz compiles the essays of four Native American writers and activists, including Jacqueline Keeler, who writes: I see, in the First Thanksgiving story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism. Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused. Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving Day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle.
And the healing process can begin. Students, choose the article you relate to the most, then tell us: How do you feel about Thanksgiving? Does the holiday make you feel grateful? Nostalgic? Angry? Lonesome? Connected? Do you think these articles encompass the breadth of Thanksgiving experiences? Do you relate to one more than the others? Why? What are other stories of Thanksgiving that you think are important to tell? Can you find any of those stories in the Times archive?
Now tell us, what does Thanksgiving mean to you? Why? Does it mean something different to other people in your family or community? Has the meaning of Thanksgiving changed for you over time? Are there certain Thanksgiving traditions that you want to preserve throughout your life? Are there other Thanksgiving traditions that you would like to create as you get older? What does Thanksgiving mean to you? Is it a time to come together with family? Is it a special meal with delicious food? Does Thanksgiving make you think of long days stuck in traffic or suffering through tense conversations with family members?
As coronavirus cases continue to spike around the United States and additional Covid-19 safety precautions are put in place, how will your Thanksgiving be different this year? And, should we rethink how we traditionally celebrate Thanksgiving, given the inaccuracies in the tale of Thanksgiving, and in light of a renewed focus on racial justice this year? In “How to Do Thanksgiving With Less Waste,” Priya Krishna writes about environmental activists, educators and urban farmers who are rethinking Thanksgiving with a lens of environmental justice and history: The holiday is one of the most wasteful times of the year, with 200 million pounds of turkey alone tossed out annually, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Most dinners this year will be smaller, as the coronavirus pandemic ravages the country. Yet the day’s environmental impact may still be significant — perhaps even more so, since many Americans will be serving Thanksgiving-size feasts to only a few guests. Reducing waste can be as simple as turning scraps into broth and reusing containers. But Ms. Jackson and other environmental advocates say it’s equally important to think more broadly about our relationship to the holiday, and the vast ripple effects of the waste it generates.
“Traditional Native peoples are raised with this idea that we have a responsibility for our land,” which means using all parts of a plant or animal, and fertilizing the ground with bones and shells so that food will regenerate, said Dr. Enrique Salmón, 62, a professor of American Indian studies at California State University East Bay.
The classic Thanksgiving ingredients, like turkey, pumpkin and sweet potatoes, were originally cultivated by Native Americans in ways that showed respect for the Earth. But the celebration has become commercialized, and unmindful of the nation’s violent treatment of Native Americans, said Nikki Sanchez, an Indigenous scholar and documentary filmmaker who lives on Coast Salish territory in Victoria, British Columbia. Those who celebrate need to be more aware of this, and take the time to appreciate their food. “Gratitude and abundance are reciprocal things,” said Ms. Sanchez, 33. When we take from the land, she said, we should also give back — through growing, recycling, composting and replanting. Cooking the same dishes for Thanksgiving each year also leads to mass production of ingredients like turkey and cranberries, which puts undue stress on food systems, Ms. Sanchez said. She suggested people create a menu inspired by their heritage — smoked fish from Norway, mole from Mexico. “Think of the foods that are actually representative to who you are,” she said, and “actually bringing your own identity into this holiday.”
Students, read the entire article, then tell us: Have you ever considered the environmental impact of Thanksgiving? What could you do to make your Thanksgiving more environmentally conscious? Is Thanksgiving a significant holiday for you and your family? Or is it just another day off from school? What values or traditions do you associate with Thanksgiving? What worries or frustrates you about the holiday? How do you feel about Thanksgiving this year? Are you adjusting your holiday celebrations in light of the pandemic? If so, what will be different? How do you feel about the changes that you and your family are making this year?
How do your unique Thanksgiving traditions highlight your identity, heritage and beliefs? Do you eat dishes that are specific to your family, ancestors and history? What is one dish that you enjoy preparing or eating? Describe the dish using vivid details. The article emphasizes that mindfulness around waste is “one way to help communities of color, who are often the most endangered by overflowing landfills and the air pollution and hazardous chemical runoff they create.” Are there other values or actions that you think are important to emphasize during the Thanksgiving holiday? How do you think we can be more accountable and thoughtful to others around Thanksgiving? The featured article addresses the legacy of violence toward Native Americans that is often ignored when celebrating Thanksgiving. This year, in particular, many people are talking about the devastating impact of the coronavirus on Native American communities. What role do you think acknowledging that history, and its legacy today, should play in celebrating — or choosing not to celebrate — Thanksgiving? Do you think it is important to talk about the problematic and harmful history of colonization in relation to Thanksgiving? If yes, what should that conversation look like? What actions should be taken in light of that history? What emotions do you feel as you look at the faces in that crowd? Have you ever been in a crowd waiting for a store to open after Thanksgiving? If so, what was it like? Would you do it again? The article “Black Friday Shopping: Tales From the Front Lines,” describes “what it looks and feels like at American shopping malls, retailers and discount stores,” including reporter Nick Madigan’s conversation with Barb Mulkey, a Florida woman who went shopping on Friday:
“It’s my first Black Friday shopping ever,” Ms. Mulkey said as she strolled through Macy’s, her arms laden with loot. “My neighbor talked me into it.” In previous years, reports of “crazy people” storming through retail establishments had dissuaded her from participating, she said. As it turned out, she got to see some craziness herself this time. In another store, Ms. Mulkey, a middle-school math teacher, and her neighbor, Kathy Van Singel, an orthodontist’s assistant, had been loading poinsettias into a shopping cart when, their attention diverted, someone made off with the cart, flowers and all. There were no more on the shelf. “And then I became one of those nuts,” Ms. Mulkey said. “We ended up finding some more somewhere else, so we got our poinsettias. But some woman asked me to reach a box for her, and I said, ‘You’re on your own, lady.’” Students: Read the entire article, then tell us: Have you ever witnessed or personally experienced an event like the one Ms. Mulkey describes? Why do you think Black Friday (and Thanksgiving weekend) shopping is so popular with some people? On the other hand, a related article from last week states that online shopping would likely reduce the amount of money people spent in stores on Black Friday. How does your experience or the experience of people in your life support or contradict that idea? Do you enjoy shopping in the hours and days after Thanksgiving? Why or why not? What are you most excited about giving this year? Why? Do you feel the need to shop on Black Friday? Why or why not? Have you ever been shopping on Black Friday? If so, what was that experience like? Who did you go with? Did you find it exciting or stressful? Would you go again? Why do you think ordinary shoppers turn into dangerous mobs on this day? What advice would you give to shoppers this year to avoid the mayhem that often comes with Black Friday? Finally, we know that Thanksgiving isn’t easy for everyone.
“Family drama around the holidays is such a cliché that I can probably name a dozen movies off the top of my head that start with the premise of a moderately dysfunctional clan getting together for Thanksgiving or Christmas,” begins a recent Parenting newsletter. Though the writer is addressing adults, holidays can be stressful for teenagers, too. What, if anything, has you worried about the coming Thanksgiving holiday, or any other seasonal family or community gathering? How will you cope? What tips can you offer others for making family celebrations go as smoothly as possible? What, if anything, is hard about the holidays for you?
