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Celebrating Thanksgiving Day in an
American family
From Lu Guoyun
Jiading No1. High School
Thanksgiving Day is an American traditonal holiday,falling on
the fourth Thursday in November. The first American Thanksgiving was
celebrated in 1621, to commemorate the harvest reaped by the Plymouth
Colony after a harsh winter. In that year Governor William Bradford
proclaimed a day of thanksgiving. The colonists celebrated it as a
traditional English harvest feast, to which they invited the local
Wampanoag Indians.
A week in advance, all of us were arranged for to observe
Thanksgiving Day in different American families. To be frank, that is an
adventure to us. When we learned the news we were a little nervous as well
as excited. All of us were devided into different small groups with two or
three of members in each group. Every group would go to an American family
to celebrate Thanksgiving Day with members of that family. I was lucky
enough to go to our American teacher Linda's home with Anna, who is from
Liyuan High School and Tracey, from Putuo District.
On the morning of Thanksgiving Day, different groups were
picked up to different American families from our motel. With the
well-chosen gifts, we began to experience this important American holiday.
I was quite sure that we wanted to learn more about American holidays and
its culture by means of experiencing this Thanksgiving. At 1:00 PM we
arrived at our destination---Linda's house, where we were warmly welcomed.
Especially, Linda's three pet dogs showed great interest to the guests
from China. After greetings, I noticed the table for Thanksgiving dinner
had been set in the middle of the room, with a lot of spoons and forks
placed in order. Immediately, I realized that it would be a very formal
Thanksgiving feast. We three were very glad because we had a chance to
experience the atmosphere of the holiday and make our stomaches happy.
More than two hours later, we began to enjoy those tasty traditional
Thanksgiving food---roasting turkey, dressing, gravy, shrimps,salad, and
pumpkin pie with icecream on it. So tasty! During the Thanksgiving feast,
we had a pleasant talk, from which we obtained a lot of detailed
information about it. I believe this will benefit my students a lot.
When I returned to our motel, it was nearly 9:00 PM. My
roommate Leo was already back. He told me he had a pleasant time, which
was one of his unforgetable experiences.
This was how we celebrated Thanksgiving in Denver, Colarado.
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