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.