Thanksgiving has a very close tie with kinship. My entire thanksgiving experience that i observed and recorded over my weekend all directly relates to kinship. From my interviews, the general consensus is that it is a time for being thankful for what we have and a time for he family to get together. My parents both mentioned in their interviews that they don’t celebrate thanksgiving for the original reason it was celebrated, but an excuse to gather friends and family and to party and eat. Family is a very important value for my parents and they see thanksgiving as a way to reflect that. They see it as a way to connect the people we love and to share our abundance and wealth all together under one roof. They see it is a time to open our homes and to give a family to everyone because many people feel sad or left out during the holidays. From my research and observation, thanksgiving is a time to celebrate thanks for all of our blessings and to share these blessings with our friends and family. People will drive far for this occasion, and pets are also included because we want to celebrate with them since they are family as well. Thanksgiving can definitely create stronger bonds because celebrating holidays together is always something special. My observation of what thanksgiving means to people is that it is a time to celebrate family and our blessings and to eat lots of food to celebrate the harvest and abundance of food we can afford.

This picture captures me interviewing my mother about her thoughts on thanksgiving. My mom came from samoa to the US when she was 20 so that is when she started celebrating it. Her feelings towards thanksgiving is that it is a time for warmth and family and to reflect on everything that we are thankful for. My mom values family very highly and thanksgiving is a time for her to reflect and portray that.

I interviewed my dad and asked him several questions about thanksgiving. His view on thanksgiving is that it is a good excuse for family and friends to all get together and eat good food and celebrate. His favorite item of food on thanksgiving is pumpkin pie. His favorite part of our thanksgiving was sitting around the dinner table talking to friends and family because it is an opportunity to spend time with people he does not see often.

Leftovers are definitely one of the more important parts of thanksgiving. The thanksgiving meal is purposefully cooked larger than needed so we can have these leftovers for quite a few days after. I don’t know if i prefer the original feast or everything you make in the days following with the leftovers better. They show abundance while feeding our family for days.

Finally, to end the night off, we had a bonfire and sat around it and roasted marshmallows and talked. It would rain on and off but the fire kept us warm and dry. It was a nice way to end a good day with friends and family. My family likes to tell stories around the fire so we have something to think about before bed. It was a good way to end a great thanksgiving.

After completely stuffing ourselves with dessert, we all took a long walk outside to get our blood flowing to help better digest. However, since we are still really full when we get back, we all sat on the couches and watched some television. We still interacted and commented while the television was on, and we also drank more tea to ease our stomach pains.

Our friends dog wanted to join us at the table so we let him. Max is our friends dog who came along with them to spend the night. People will travel with and bring their pets with them because they want to celebrate the holidays with them. This can really be a reflect on american culture and how we view our pets so highly as if they were family.

This picture is capturing one of my cats getting served some turkey from the feast. Our cats always eat really well and my parents like to think that the cats are included if they too have a plate of food. Of course their plate only consists of turkey, but as you can see, they are spoiled. This shows the relationship between pets and family because they are treated as one of the family and this is seen especially on holidays.

Now since dessert is food, this is just an equally important part of thanksgiving as the main course. There are many desserts you can serve on thanksgiving but you cannot forget the pumpkin pie. In my interview with my father, he said that pumpkin pie was an essential food item to be served on thanksgiving. We also celebrated with many other options to choose some, like chocolate cream pie, brownies, ice cream and to wash it all down with some tea.

Many of our friends and family love and play music so a few of us decided to play the guitar and ukulele and sing. This is a great way to spend time and let loose with your family and really bond with the people you love. Thanksgiving is all about having a good time with your friends and family and being in a music circle definitely portrays that.