Do you know any indians/native Americans who celebrate Thanksgiving?

Interesting... two votes... one FIVE STAR rating and one ZERO STAR rating, but no discussion.

Come on, let's discuss...

Here's one for the voters, as I see that there is a voting war going on here...



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At this time of year, most Americans briefly remember that others were here before them, even though the declaration of November as "Native American History Month" goes largely unnoticed.

Like Columbus Day, there is a reason that many Indians don't celebrate Thanksgiving, and refuse to be associated with it. Many have grown up with romanticized fables of the "First Thanksgiving," complete with Pilgrims and Indians. This image comes from the late 19th century. The truth is less attracive.

In 1620, English Pilgrims arrived in Massachussetts. Within a few years, they had repaid the hospitality of their Wampanoag hosts by launching a war against them. In the Autumn of 1637, their neigbors the Pequots were gathered for their annual harvest festival near modern Groton. A detachment of English soldiers and Dutch mercenaries surrounded the village, and shot Indians as they came out of the longhouse.

At the end, they sealed exits and burned the village, killing some 700 men, women, and children. The next day, the English governor declared "a day of Thanksgiving," thanking God that they had eliminated the Indians, opening Pequot land for white settlement. That proclamation was repeated each year for the next century.

I relate this not to guilt-trip white America or to ruin elementary school pageants, but to remind people that genocide and ethnocide are very real elements of our history. When the truth of that history is known, perhaps more Americans will follow their turkey and cranberry sauce with a committment to redress the outrages of the past by working to improve the living conditions of our people today, to confront the racsim and political suppression that still exists, and to help us in preserving our culture and traditions for the future. Then we can say, unalihelisdi, "let us give thanks together".

Sincerely,

Brian StandingBear Wilkes
Hawk Band Chief
American Cherokee Confederacy
Flanders, NJ

Annual Indian Rally Sparks Violence
(The Associated Press)

PLYMOUTH, Mass. (AP) - An annual American Indian gathering in this town where Thanksgiving began turned violent Thursday when police confronted a group of Indians trying to march through the center of town.

About 20 protesters from the United American Indians of New England were arrested by police and charged with disorderly conduct.

Police refused to release any information about the event and declined to comment on the arrests.

Witnesses said the disturbance began when Indian protesters and hundreds of supporters tried to march through the historic center of Plymouth.

Chris Groden, an American Indian, said police sprayed mace directly into several people's eyes.

Earlier in the day a group re-enacting the first Thanksgiving marched down the same road dressed in traditional Pilgrim costumes in an annual event called the Pilgrim Progress walk.

Groden said he objected to that walk because the people portraying Pilgrims show up ``with a bible in one hand and a musket in the other. And guess who the musket was aimed at?''

Members of the Plymouth Historical Alliance said earlier this week that they have tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a compromise with the Indians.

No Historical Alliance members could be reached after the disturbance.

That is the same way we have been treated these many years on Thanksgiving... today our Grandmothers and Grandfathers were beaten and our Mothers and our children... there are some among us who were there to witness this!

i wuz just thinkin about this yesterday...what's the point of thanxgiving, anyhow? obviously it ain't the pilgrims and cornucopia-crap most of us were told in elementary school...



...if i go on anymore, i will begin ranting incessantly, prince-style...

For three days the Wampanoags feasted with the Pilgrims. It was a special time of friendship between two very different groups of people. A peace and friendship agreement was made between Massasoit and Miles Standish giving the Pilgrims the clearing in the forest where the old Patuxet village once stood to build their new town of Plymouth

It would be very good to say that this friendship lasted a long time; but, unfortunately, that was not to be. More English people came to America, and they were not in need of help from the Indians as were the original Pilgrims. Many of the newcomers forgot the help the Indians had given them. Mistrust started to grow and the friendship weakened. The Pilgrims started telling their Indian neighbors that their Indian religion and Indian customs were wrong.

This time of friendship and peace did not last. Before too long the clashes of culture, and the differences in beliefs, surfaced, creating a hostile environment for both cultures. The Pilgrims could not have survived without the aid and teachings of the Native Americans. The importance of the Indian's help soon became forgotten in the clashes that occured. Let us today be forever Thankful that the Native Americans that befriended the Pilgrims lived by their own beliefs and teachings of helping those in need. For without their aid, what would have become of the Pilgrims at Plymouth?


http://www.victorianas.co...ative.html

Keep the votes coming, christian Americans!

:LOL:

PlastikLuvAffair said:

Go ahead and rant... it is fun and, judging from the vote war, it apparently pisses some people off!

The following Penobscot viewpoint on Thanksgiving was distributed by Gary Night Owl on his weekly email Indian newspaper, in the fall of 1995:

O'siyo Brothers and Sisters!

It is two weeks before Thanksgiving is celebrated. Throughout the United States, schools perpetuate a lie about the origins of this holiday that tells of a happy gathering between grateful Europeans and their "Indian" benefactors. Many reading this newsletter will even be asked to appear before civic or school groups to tell this happy story.

The following, researched by William B. Newell (Penobscot Tribe) Former Chairman of the University of Connecticut Anthropology Department, may be of interest. Source: Documents of Holland, 13 Volume Colonial Documentary History, letters and reports form colonial officials to their superiors and the King in England and the private papers of Sir William Johnson, British Indian agent for the New York colony for 30 years.

The year was 1637...700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe, gathered for their "Annual Green Corn Dance" in the area that is now known as Groton, Conn.

While they were gathered in this place of meeting, they were surrounded and attacked by mercenaries of the English and Dutch. The Indians were ordered from the building and as they came forth, they were shot down. The rest were burned alive in the building. The next day, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared : "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children. For the next 100 years, every "Thanksgiving Day" ordained by a Governor or President was to honor that victory, thanking God that the battle had been won.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Peace! Gary Night Owl gars@genie.geis.com

AN OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR DODD AND THE PEOPLE OF CONNEC-
TICUT

Saygo and Happy Thanksgiving:

I know that you will be sitting down to a feast this week, to
give thanks for your ancestors deliverance from starvation in a new
land. On the Paugeesukq reserve tribal members will likewise give
thanks and many who live off the reservation will come together on
the reservation, bringing food to give thanks. It was very hard for
the ancestors of the first New Englanders and it is unlikely that
they would have survived if not for the help an Algonquin Indian,
Squanto, gave to them. Today, it is hard for the Paugeesukqs.
Though they are a tenacious people and would not say that survival
is threatened, without the help of the descendants of the first New
Englanders, this nation of first people, of Algonquins like
Squanto, will have a very hard time.

Squanto was greatly wronged by English people. He was
kidnapped from his land to be sold into slavery. He was taken to
Europe for this purpose, but was delivered out of slavery by
Christian friars. After many years he returned to the land of his
people to find that they were all dead. When living among a
neighboring tribe, he discovered a group of English pilgrims,
barely alive, at the site of his people's village. He took pity on
them and showed them how to find and grow the foods of his land.
The first Thanksgiving on these shores was a three day feast of
celebration to honor that harvest which would not have happened,
but for the decency of that Algonquin, Squanto.

Some time after that, Paugeesukqs had their first encounter
with New Englanders. Under the leadership of a man named Mason,
Paugeesukq villages were burned and the men, women and even the
children were killed. The Paugeesukqs were killed, not because
they had made war on the new people, they did not. They were killed
because they were Algonquin Indians. This was America's ethnic
cleansing. Mason's followers did not give much thought to the
kindness of Indians like Squanto who had welcomed them into the new
land.

Though most of the Paugeesukqs were slaughtered or sold into
slavery in the sugar plantations of the West Indies, some remained.
In spite of constant theft of the little land they still had, they
remained and like Squanto were good neighbors in spite of the
wrongs done to them. Contemporary records show that Paugeesukqs,
like William Sherman, in the 1830's, were good neighbors to the
non-Indian community which still was in the process of taking
Paugeesukq land.

Over the centuries New Englanders have celebrated Thanksgiving
by remembering the pilgrims' deliverance. The part of Squanto in
that remembrance is not a major aspect of the celebration. Could
it be that New Englanders seldom remember the good works of
Indians? For example, Senator Dodd and Connecticut neighbors of
the Paugeesukq oppose Federal recognition of the Paugeesukqs. They
do not acknowledge that when a Paugeesukq chief, acting alone and
without the necessary direction of the Tribal Council, attempted to
tie up their homes in litigation for ancient land claims, it was
the Paugeesukq Tribal Council that went to court and had these land
claims withdrawn. The Chief was removed from office. There were no
letters of thanks from the homeowners whose land was defended by
Paugeesukq Indians. Rather, a committee was formed, the Connecticut
Homeowners Held Hostage, whose purpose was to complete the ethnic
cleansing begun so long age. The purpose was to erase the
Paugeesukq nation from existence with letters instead of a sword.

This Thanksgiving, is it too much to ask that you honor
Squanto's memory. Senator Dodd, please end your endorsement of
ethnic cleansing, and sisters and brothers in New England, please
write to Senator Dodd and ask that he become a friend to the
Indians of Connecticut.

Truly in Thanks and Fellowship

Lawrence Otway
Tribal Court Judge
Golden Hill Paugeesukq
Tribal Nation

Thanksgiving and us


By Ron Daniels
Date posted: 11/23/99


For many Americans Thanksgiving evokes memories of the Pilgrims, European immigrants, landing at Plymouth Rock in a new land in search of freedom from religious persecution. Unaccustomed to this strange territory, Native people came to their rescue imparting skills and know-how to enable these early immigrants to overcome the rigors of the first year in America.

Legend has it that the Pilgrims gathered at the end of the harvest season to give thanks to God for surviving to establish what they hoped would be a prosperous new community. They could have just as easily thanked the Native Americans without whose help they would not have endured in a strange land.

Rather than showing gratitude to the Native Americans, however, these early settlers, convinced that their culture, religion and way of life was superior to that of the Indians, soon turned on their hosts and began driving them off their land; a pattern that would be repeated time and time again as wave after wave of European immigrants descended on the "land of opportunity".

There is little in the experience of Native Americans or Africans in America to endear them to the Thanksgiving celebration.

The conquest and colonization of the Americas by Europeans is one of the most monstrous acts of genocide in human history. "Freedom" for European immigrants was secured at the expense of freedom for the indigenous people who lost their land at sword and gun point.

Africans were involuntary "immigrants" to the Americas, having been enslaved and brought to this hemisphere to provide free labor rather than to enjoy freedom. As Malcolm X once put it, "you didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on you."

The Europeans who came brought their culture in tack. Even as indentured servants they were "free" to speak their native language, practice their religions, marry and keep their families together and to generally use their common ethnicity to establish viable communities in a new land.

Those Native Americans who survived the genocidal onslaught of the European invaders were eventually herded onto reservations where there was a concerted effort to "Christianize" and "civilize" Indian people, to compel them to give up their rich traditions, heritage and way of life to become European imitations.

The British-American chattel form of slavery to which Africans were subjected was the most brutal and dehumanizing form of slavery the world has ever known.

The enslaved Africans were taught that their color was a "badge of degradation".

In addition, Africans were forbidden to speak their native language, practice their own religions or play African musical instruments.

It is important to make these points as Thanksgiving approaches because Africans in America need to use the occasion not so much to celebrate as to reflect on the differences between the experiences of European immigrants in contrast to the experiences of Native Americans and Africans.

To reiterate, Thanksgiving is not a holiday for Native Americans and Africans to celebrate in the same way that Europeans observe the occasion.

For Native Americans and Africans, Thanksgiving should service as a reminder of the crimes committed by Europeans against two proud people and the urgent need to continue the struggle to compel the U.S. government to make full restitution to Native Americans and Africans to repair the damage and make our people whole again.

When that occurs we can pause to be thankful.

For now we should simply use the occasion to thank God and the ancestors that we have survived to continue the struggle for liberation.

Thanksgiving Day




Thanksgiving Day in the US is an awkward time. Aside from the fun of having a day off, watching football, overeating, or just being with family and friends, we shouldn't forget that the holiday actually commemorates a big myth in American history. This holiday originated as a feast of giving thanks, celebrated by cooperation of the Native Americans (aka Indians) and the newly arrived immigrants, the pilgrims. Have you ever wondered how Native Americans feel about this holiday today?


We've all seen images of the meal, with both groups contributing and enjoying a feast. History books report that this happened (http://www.2020tech.com/thanks/temp.html). But, considering what we now know happened to the Native Americans in the years that followed (see Native American links below), it is extremely unusual that this image is still pushed onto school children and the public at large. Most of the Native Americans at that feast were dead a few years after their contact with the pilgrims, from diseases introduced to their native land. Most of the Native Americans that were spared death from these new diseases, died resisting the expansion of territories held by the colonists. The result has been that a population that numbered a few million 300 years ago, is now no more than 400,000 - most of them living in isolated reservations far from their original fertile hunting and farming lands.

Thanksgiving Day symbolizes the "Last Supper" of the Native Americans. Arab-Americans familiar with the modern history of the Palestinians find it difficult to play along with this game. Jewish Europeans fleeing the Holocaust and survivors of persecution in Europe arrived in Palestine for refuge. They then turned around, took the land with arms and forced out the local population in 1948, destroying as much of Palestinian culture and history as they could. Golda Meir's remark that, there is no such thing as a Palestinian, shows clearly the attempt of the colonialist to rewrite history. If the Arabs resist, label them terrorist. This sounds all too much like the term used to describe the Native Americans, "savages", for their attempts to protect their nation, land and way of life.

Thanksgiving Day has become commercialized like most other holidays in America today. But, let us not be ignorant of the true history associated with it. Let us give thanks for the good things in our lives, our family and friends. let us also take this reminder of history as an opportunity to learn about the history of Native Americans, as an integral part of the history of this nation. Let us not allow their rich history to be forgotten. There are many useful sites on the internet by Native Americans. Following are just a couple of interesting ones. Let us know what you think.

Native American Links:

http://hanksville.phast.u...urces.html

Pocahontas' tribe, the Powhatan Renape Nation's history of their experience with the European immigrants: http://www.powhatan.org/
"Since the time we met the Europeans in the 1500's, our history has been characterized as a struggle to survive war, disease, prejudice, and cultural disintegration. Foreign disease alone probably accounted for halving the Powhatan population by the end of the 17th century. Many of the survivors of those early epidemics were largely decimated by war and starvation. Yet, against all odds, we the Renape (human beings) have survived."

excerpt from the Fourth World Documentation Project:

4. The Wampanoag Indians were not the "friendly savages"
some of us were told about when we were in the primary
grades. Nor were they invited out of the goodness of the
Pilgrims' hearts to share the fruits of the Pilgrims'
harvest in a demonstration of Christian charity and
interracial brotherhood. The Wampanoag were members of a
widespread confederacy of Algonkian-speaking peoples
known as the League of the Delaware. For six hundred
years they had been defending themselves from my other
ancestors, the Iroquois, and for the last hundred years
they had also had encounters with European fishermen and
explorers but especially with European slavers, who had
been raiding their coastal villages.(6) They knew
something of the power of the white people, and they did
not fully trust them. But their religion taught that
they were to give charity to the helpless and
hospitality to anyone who came to them with empty
hands.(7) Also, Squanto, the Indian hero of the
Thanksgiving story, had a very real love for a British
explorer named John Weymouth, who had become a second
father to him several years before the Pilgrims arrived
at Plymouth. Clearly, Squanto saw these Pilgrims as
Weymouth's people.(8) To the Pilgrims the Indians were
heathens and, therefore, the natural instruments of the
Devil. Squanto, as the only educated and baptized
Christian among the Wampanoag, was seen as merely an
instrument of God, set in the wilderness to provide for
the survival of His chosen people, the Pilgrims. The
Indians were comparatively powerful and, therefore,
dangerous; and they were to be courted until the next
ships arrived with more Pilgrim colonists and the
balance of power shifted. The Wampanoag were actually
invited to that Thanksgiving feast for the purpose of
negotiating a treaty that would secure the lands of the
Plymouth Plantation for the Pilgrims. It should also be
noted that the INDIANS, possibly out of a sense of
charity toward their hosts, ended up bringing the
majority of the food for the feast.(9)

see the rest of this document at http://www.2020tech.com/t.../temp.html

Massacres, murder, mayhem:
THE TRUE STORY OF THANKSGIVING

by Tingba Apidta

A harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in mid-October
and the Indians who attended were not even invited. It later became known as
"Thanksgiving" but the Pilgrims never called it that. The pilgrim crop had
failed miserably that year, but the agricultural expertise of the Pilgrims'
Indian friend Squanto had produced 20 acres of corn without which the
Pilgrims would have surely perished. The Pilgrims invited Massasoit, and it
was he who then invited 90 or more of his Indian brothers and sisters to the
affair to the chagrin of the indignant Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce
or pumpkin pie was served, no prayers were offered and the Indians were not
invited back. The Pilgrims did, however, consume a good deal of home brew. In
fact, each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of ale a day which they
preferred even to water.

Contrary to popular mythology, the Pilgrims were no friends to the majority
of local Indians. Just days before this alleged Thanksgiving communion, a
company of Pilgrims led by Myles Standish actively sought the head of a local
chief. They deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians,
putting one against the other in an attempt to obtain "better intelligence
and make them both more diligent." An 11-foot-high wall was erected around
the entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.

Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He beheaded an Indian brave named
Wituwamat and brought the head to Plymouth where it was displayed on a wooden
spike for many years. Just a few years later, in about 1636, a force of
colonists trapped some 700 Pequot Indian men, women, and children near the
mouth of the Mystic River. English Captain John Mason attacked the Indian
camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful escaped
and few prisoners were taken, to the great delight of the Pilgrims:

To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching the
same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice,
and they gave praise thereof to God.

This event marked what was most likely the first actual Thanksgiving and the
Pilgrims were pleased with the result. Any goodwill that may have existed was
certainly now gone and by 1675 Massachusetts and the surrounding colonies
were in a full-scale war with the great Indian chief of the Wampanoags,
Metacomet. Renamed "King Philip" by the White man, Metacomet watched the
steady erosion of the lifestyle and culture of his people as European laws
and values engulfed them. Forced into humiliating submission by the power of
a distant king, Metacomet struck out in 1675 with raids on several isolated
frontier towns. The expedient use of the so-called "Praying Indians," natives
converted by the colonists to "Christianity," ultimately defeated the great
Indian nation, just half a century after the arrival of the European
historian Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end:

The ruthless executions, the cruel sentences ... were all aimed at the same
goal--unchallenging white supremacy in southern New England. That the program
succeeded is convincingly demonstrated by the almost complete docility of the
local native ever since.

When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and assassinated Metacomet, his
body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The great Indian
chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head went to Plymouth
where it was set upon a pole on Thanksgiving Day, 1676. Metacomet's
nine-year-old son was destined for execution, the Puritan reasoning being
that the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of their father. He was
instead shipped to the Caribbean to serve his life in slavery.

In the midst of the Holocaust of the Red Man, Governor Dudley declared in
1704 a "General Thanksgiving"--not to celebrate the brotherhood of man---but
for:

[God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors ... In defeating and
disappointing ... the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And the
good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them into our
hands...

Just two years later one could reap a $50 reward in Massachusetts for the
scalp of an Indian.

The model of the Indian reservation system in North America had its origin in
Massachusetts. A series of legislative acts "for the better regulation of the
Indians" established Indian settlements throughout the state. A White
overseer was appointed and white Christianity was imposed. Historian George
F. Weston wrote
that demand was great for ropemaker John Harrison, what with "the need for
rigging for all the ships and a new rope every time an Indian was hanged."
Bon Appetite!

(Dr. Tingba Apidta is author of The Hidden History of Massachusetts: A Guide
for Black Folks and also The Hidden History of Washington, DC, prepared in
honor of the Million Man March. His next book in the series is about New York
and is due in January 1997.)

IceNine said:

you're pretty much summin it all up 4 me with all this stuff, icenine!

c'mon, ya'll...i know there's more folks who wanna get up on this soapbox...the land we're livin on here in the states wuz stolen and u know it...

PlastikLuvAffair said:

Apparently they would rather vote zero stars a lot of times, as if that does any good. :LOL:

IceNine said:

No, but how about this?

You know there are MANY examples of things that came about from specific situations but that have been around for SO long that they don't neccessarily mean the same thing anymore, know what I mean?

Like saying "Bless You" when someone sneezes. It came into being cuz people a long time ago thought when you snezzed, you were releasing evil or demons from your body and "May God bless you" was said as a blessing, that being quite ignorant thinking today. Its just a something to say now.

Thanksgiving had horrible roots in its founding, but people today do not celebrate the victories over the native-americans on thanksgiving, its a time for families to daw near and celebrate the good in their lives and to offer thanks for their, friends, failies, health and wealth.

Its just not the same thing anymore.

feltbluish said Thanksgiving had horrible roots in its founding, but people today do not celebrate the victories over the native-americans on thanksgiving, its a time for families to daw near and celebrate the good in their lives and to offer thanks for their, friends, failies, health and wealth.

Its just not the same thing anymore.[/quote]


My sentiments exactly!!!

we were discussing this in the chat room yesterday...
over here we have something called Australia Day.. i'm sure there aren't too many aboriginal ppl rushing to celebrate...

ya think they may have found out that they got fucked off
in most of the treaties yet???

Well... this is a great topic and there are not enough zero star votes... let's get to work kiddies!

IceNine said:

Yes. One of my best friends is Native American (Lakota Sioux) and he and his family celebrate every year. His father is also a very staunch supporter of Native American rights and keeping with traditional ways (to the point where my friend wasn't allowed to cut his hair as a child, because that was their custom). I even spent one Thanksgiving with him and his mother and brother.

As for what really happened with the Pilgims? I think they choose other ways to remember those events, and celebrate Thanksgiving like many Americans do, as a time to give feel grateful and recognize all we have.

i wrote an article about this topic for a native american magazine earlier this year...the meaning behind thanksgiving makes me angry, but i think most american's are innocent in the way that i think they celebrate the holiday as an excuse to eat tons of food. i don't think they take the time to really look deeper into what it's all about.

peace, kim--

IceNine said:

I have family that works at MSU and last year, in one of the departments, they ended up changing the name of their work lunch to "Holiday Feast", instead of Thanksgiving, due to this very reason.

They are changing the "Christmas Lunch" to something else this year as well... I think they decided on "Lunch" because, no matter what the director came up with, someone was offended.


.
[This message was edited Fri Nov 29 16:06:46 PST 2002 by AzureStar]

Thank you IceNine for the information. I'm sure that you pissed off alot of people because hardly anyone likes to hear the truth.

I am not a "native american", but as a hispanic of tan skin, I have indigenous blood mixed in with the white. Since my college years I have refused to celebrate Columbus Day since my half of my ancestors lost everything as a result of the European conquest. If you read your history (as you obviously have) you come to realize that the pride of America as a "land of the free" and "home of the brave" is mostly based on lies and hypocrisy.

Colonial America was just as imperialistic as early Rome or Napoleonic France...except they sought to wipe the native peoples off the face of the earth as opposed to just conquering them. The president who blatantly disregarded the Supreme Court of the United States and forced the horrible relocation of the "Five Civilized Nations" (see the Trail of Tears) and is credited for making famous the phrase "the only good Indian is a dead Indian"...is today honored by having his face plastered on the $20 bill.

I read somewhere once that Hitler used the American Indian Reservations as a model for his concentration camps. If that is true...then what does it mean that in the 21st century in America, land of freedom, justice & democracy, we still have these glorified containment camps? The people living in some of these reservations are amongst the poorest in the continent!

Two good books to read are "Indians Are Us?" and "Lies My Teacher Told Me." I don't recall the authors, but they are full of interesting facts about our great nation which will make you want to hang your head in shame.

Here's an intersting article about teaching respect for Native Peoples;

http://www.ammsa.com/clas...EDDOS.html

I'm part Native American (Cherokee), and I "observed" it, so to speak...

My boyfriend and I watched a video of Northern Exposure last night, the Thanksgiving episode. Since it is set in Alaska, there are many Native Americans on the show and they celebrated with a Day of the Dead parade. They also had a custom to throw tomatoes at white people. Not sure if this is actually a custom, but it was pretty funny. Northern Exposure is a pretty quirky show.

I think most of us just take the opportunity to eat turkey with all the fixings and spend time with family. But that can be done any day of the year really.