Thanksgiving and Pahiyas festival

For a couple of years now, we have been celebrating Thanksgiving here in the United States. I came from the Philippines and I managed to mix thanksgiving festivities mixing two cultures.

I am inviting everybody for thanksgiving, come and join us.

Thanksgiving in the US

Thanksgiving is celebrated in the countries Canada (2^nd Monday of October) and the United States (4^th Thursday of November).  The family usually share dinner and enjoy the thanksgiving meal. It is a celebration of the pilgrims and the beauty of the fall and as a way of gratitude for the harvest. It is a way of thanking what we have for the year and the blessings we have been receiving. It is a way in which family get together for reunion. According to history, thanksgiving celebration was started in 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida and happened in Plymouth Plantation. According to wikipedia, the Plymouth celebration occurred early in the history in one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States, and this celebration became an important part of the American myth by the 1800s.Foods include turkeys, geese, swan,lobster, dried fruit, clams, and plums. Watching football during Thanksgiving is a popular tradition too.

Pahiyas festival in the Philippines

In the Philippines we have Pahiyas festival which is the equivalent of thanksgiving here in the United States. Celebrations of thanksgiving is not national in character in the Philippines. Different places has different times and way to celebrate their thanksgiving every after harvest. The main thing here is the people offer their harvest in honor of a patron saint. Festivities such as shared meal and dancing are held in different places. I will discuss to you how do they celebrate it in a municipality called Lucban. It is a 3rd class municipality in Quezon, Philippines and has a population of almost 46,000 people. Lucban celebrates the Pahiyas Festival every 15^th of May in honor of the patron saint of farmers, St. Isidore. This festival showcases a street of houses which are adorned with fruits, vegetables, agricultural products, handicrafts and kiping, a rice-made decoration, which afterwards can be eaten grilled or fried. The houses are judged and the best one is proclaimed the winner. People will roam the place to see for themselves the decoration of houses.

Decorating the house:

Here in the US, when we decorate the house during thanksgiving, we just pick up twigs, dry leaves and big and small branches of trees outside the house and color them with coloring, golden yellow and orange too so that there is a spirit of harvest and a mixture of fall. Some would be acorns, aside from colorful fallen leaves, pinecones, sticks and twigs. I will buy some flowers and fill every corner of the house with flowers. I put some dried logs at the porch of the house so that it will have a feel of harvest time.

The food:

I am very thankful we have Asian store in the US, I go there a day before thanksgiving and buy some fruits (tropical and otherwise), to be placed at the middle of the table. Tropical fruits includes watermelon, melon, banana, mango, citrus fruits, lemon to be placed in a tray together with apple, berries and oranges. We cooked rice and Filipino specialty foods like rice delicacies and pork stew, beef stew, vegetable salad and stir fry vegetables as a form of honoring harvest. I prepare also fruit salad from the fruits that I already bought. I mostly prepare vegetables, fruits, fish, pork and beef. And of course, baked turkey with Asian soy sauce stuffing is a favorite among the group.

After cooking foods, we will now call each and every friends we have, usually they are Filipino-American friends who will join us in the celebration.

As simple as that. You might think that this is very expensive but it is not, anyway we will be consuming the food later in the week so it is really worth the celebration. The essence of thanksgiving really is togetherness for the family and to be thankful always for the blessings we received, and to have strength and will to face whatever little problems life has to offer. It is also a way to meet with friends which we consider family.

So again, come one and all, join me in celebrating thanksgiving this 26^th of November.