Thanksgiving 2012 (inc Black Friday & Cyber Monday)

TURKEY DAY! Well... not "Turkey Day" for us because neither my husband nor myself are big fans of turkey... I don't mind eating it covered in gravy and ketchup, but I hate cooking it... smells SO bad raw! So Thanksgiving this year was Ham for us. Specifically brown sugar double-glazed spiral ham :) If it's not ham, it's chicken, and this year my husband picked ham.

The sides each family has depends... it can change family to family and area to area, but in my experience it tends to be:

• green bean casserole (made with mushroom soup, milk, green beans and dry fried onions)
• candied sweet potato (made with sweet potato topped with marshmallows and baked in the oven)
• cranberry sauce (most eat the kind that comes from a can)
• dinner rolls (sweeter than we have in Aus)
• pumpkin pie (dessert)

That isn't to say that's what WE have :P I don't like green bean casserole, and the candied sweet potato is WAY too sweet. The cranberry sauce isn't a favourite and the dinner rolls taste like American bread.. not good... So we have roasted vegies (potato, sweet potato and carrots with rosemary) and sometimes peas and corn and gravy. My husband, the American, likes the green bean casserole so I make that for him, and he likes stuffing so I make that separately too. We were too full to eat pumpkin pie this year but we did have chocolate pudding (mousse). Yum! We're still eating left-overs and it's still good!

Cornucopia

I'm sure most of us, all over the world, have seen or read stories about the meaning behind Thanksgiving, the pilgrims sitting down to dinner with the Natives (I have to admit my knowledge comes from the Addams Family movie with Wednesday at camp :P)... but here's a Wiki article for those that want to read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is also celebrated in Canada, though in October instead of November and has different roots, despite being called the same thing. The image on the left, the cornucopia, is a common image you'll find connected to Thanksgiving. It is supposed to symbolize the harvest bounty.

My favourite part of Thanksgiving is the idea of sitting around the table and letting everyone know what you're thankful for, or even taking the time to think about it yourself. This year I saw people changing their Facebook status each day with something they're thankful for. I thought that was pretty neat. I actually learnt some new things about people that I didn't know and that's rarely bad :D

Another cool thing about Thanksgiving is the shopping!! Like Boxing Day sales for Australia (though that's after Christmas), here in the US you have Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (Monday following Thanksgiving). This year a lot of the sales actually happened all weekend, not waiting for Monday and the Black Friday sales actually started Thursday night.

Here's the Wiki page on Black Friday -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_(shopping) but you should probably do some searches for news articles about Black Friday as well... look at some photos... some people can be CRAZY! Here's the wiki for Cyber Monday -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_Monday

The catalogues and adverts come out a week or two before the actual time for the sales, and the deals that are the best are called "doorbuster deals". These are the deals that they think will have people "busting in the doors"... and the sales tend to start around 4am, or 6am, and this year some started at midnight. People will line up outside DAYS before the sales start. This year in my area people started lining up outside Best Buy (electronics store) on SUNDAY... that's right, almost 5 days before the sale. It got to about 0C the night before the sales too... sorry, I couldn't do that! Apparently there were tents this year too!

I have never actually attended to stand in line early, I admit I'm probably a little scared. People have actually been killed, trampled to death when the doors open. This year someone pulled a gun on a line-jumper in Texas.

Cyber Monday is exactly how it sounds, sales that are online only. I haven't had a look at many of the sales this year but I did buy 2 new games (Bop It and Yahtzee). One of these days maybe I'll be a pro, know where to go and when, know what really is a good deal, but I admit Thanksgiving kinda snuck up on me this year :P Maybe next time :) At least it reminds me Christmas isn't too far away either!!

I hope those of you that celebrated Thanksgiving had a good one, and those of you who didn't, I hope you understand "our" cooky traditions a bit more :)

Halloween!

October 31st is "All Hallows Eve"

This is not my first Halloween but I'm finally starting to get into these "American holidays" - plus it's my first one since the blog so I should probably write about it :P Halloween is one of the holidays that Australian's typically don't (as a country) celebrate. Australia didn't (when I was last there) provide candy/lollies in bulk Halloween style, they don't offer the same range of costumes, decorations etc etc. It's considered by many Australian's as an "American holiday".

Well, funnily enough Halloween is NOT "just an American holiday". Halloween is celebrated in many countries, including the U.K and Canada. In fact, Halloween has quite the history, dating back to the 16th century. Here's a wikipedia article for those interested in the history in a bit more detail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween  The name "Halloween" is actually a shortened version of it's actual name "All Hallows Eve" and for my first time since being here, I was told that the 1st and 2nd November, the days following "All Hallow's Eve" are actually referred to by many as the "Day of the Dead", a Mexican holiday. See here for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

Halloween this year on my FB home page showed a whole gamut of emotions and opinions. There were of course the American's getting totally into it (talking about decorations, haunted houses, what candy to give out), some Aussie's getting into it (parties, dress-up and trick or treating) and some Aussie's venting about other Aussie's getting into it. I had people talking about how they had trick-or-treaters and how some actually slammed doors in kids faces, would tell them "We're not Yanks" or "This is an American holiday and we're not in America". Some got into the spirit though and would hand out candy/lollies to kids that came by. There are also some people who get very upset at people in Australia NOT celebrating it. Calling those people "party poopers" and those people use the excuse of celebrating it (without knowing it's actual meaning) because it "gets people out into the community". I should also mention there were some Aussie (now) friends of mine who experienced their first Halloween this year having immigrated to the U.S! One comment from such friend was "Halloween was super fun and cute! loved it!" :)

I think some of the problems stem from the misconception that this is an American only celebration (which is also all I knew it as growing up), but also that from what I could see, due to Australia not typically celebrating it, a lot of Aussie's seemed to not be aware of Halloween etiquette that if your porch light is on, you're "open for business", otherwise you're not... and people don't just go around whenever knocking on people's doors, there's a community/neighbourhood set time for trick-or-treaters. This is sometimes the night of, the night before, the weekend before etc. Different areas have different times. In my little Iowa town it was 6-8pm on the night of Halloween (Oct 31st). This gives people the "choice" to be involved or not. That choice makes a huge difference to how people would feel about it I think.

I've had a few people ask questions about what it's really like to celebrate "proper" Halloween so lets hope I cover some of your questions with some of my facts/observations below :)

1. Prior to Halloween you can find pumpkin farms that will be open for business for families to pop by and search for the perfect pumpkin to turn into a jack-o-lantern. You can also buy pumpkins at the supermarket (the big orange ones.. and decent prices too) but the farms have hay-bale rides, and hay-bale mazes and stuff like that. Great for the kiddies :)

Jack-O-Lanterns

2. Candy is sold in bulk in many places in preparation for Halloween. Your favourite candies can come in smaller sizes (smaller than fun size) but in big bags. Your personal opinion can differ but most people recommend you buy candy that is individually wrapped, and don't hand out or accept hand-made candy due to the dangers that can pose (though some people will wrap stuff to look individually wrapped so you still need to be careful).

Trick or Treaters

3. Some parents inspect the kids candy before they'll let them eat it. This is because some people do think it's funny to hand out gag candy, or sometimes people will hand out bad things like candy with razor blades etc. This year there was a story where someone handed out little baggies of heroin. Luckily the parents caught it in time!

4. Some people hand out things other than candy. I had a kid come by with an apple that someone had given him. Some people hand out pencils and other office/school supplies. Most kids (understandably) hate that people hand out something other than candy on "candy day" but I'm sure some parents appreciate it!

5. People decorate their houses (inside and out) and front yards with all sorts of things. Tombstones, spider webs, ghosts, motion activated scary things, inflatable things as well! We're still only "new" at decorating so we just one or two little things. We have bags of leaves in the orange trash/garbage bags with faces on them for outside, and a few little things inside. Here's a picture of an inflatable yard decoration I saw around town :)

Yard Decoration

6. Businesses sometimes decorate too, or don't mind if you decorate your desk/cubicle. Usually it's just a few little things like toy witches, goblins, jack-o-laterns (usually the electric ones) or other such things... I'm not sure if your boss would let you come in zombie makeup the day of Halloween.. I should ask if mine would for next year :P Some business also release special Halloween/holiday themed candy/chocolate/beverages. Here are some examples:

Russell Stover Chocolate

Panera Bread Sugar Cookies

7. Haunted houses! I still haven't been to one because I'm a big wimp but there are a LOT of haunted houses around prior to (and just following) Halloween. Most charge an admittance fee and the kids love getting scared! An acquaintance of mine works at a hauted house during the season. His make-up is usually amazing (and gross) and his aim each night is to make people throw up. Sad to say, he often succeeds!

So there you go. A little bit about Halloween :) If you have any questions please post in the comments section :)