Thanksgiving Tradition

This Thursday was Thanksgiving.  Happy Thanksgiving all!

When dissecting the holiday many people bring up how history got it wrong with the indians and pilgrims having a big, awesome feast.  I think the most interesting part of this holiday are the traditions.  For most other holidays each family has individual traditions, for example every Christmas my family and I drive around with popcorn to see everyone's Christmas lights on display.  But Thanksgiving is a different holiday because the majority have very similar traditions.  The traditional turkey dinner, with stuffing and sweet potatoes, cranberries and gravy.  They all sit around a large, done-up table for at least 45 minutes and go around saying things that they are thankful for.  These are the typical Thanksgiving traditions of the American family.

Until this Thanksgiving my family had followed these traditions to the letter.  We would cook a giant turducken (kind of the same as a turkey but it is a chicken in a duck in a turkey), the table would be all set, we would each go around and say what we are thankful for and then eat till we feel like we will explode.  This year was different.  With my dad's extended family measuring 15 people this year, and spending Christmas at a rented house in New Jersey, the traditional meal was no longer practical.  

When my mother first told me that we would eat Thanksgiving at a restaurant I was shocked.  I thought it ruined the whole 'spirit' of the holiday.  But in actuality it was one of the best Thanksgivings.  When we got to the restaurant we had the choice of the traditional meal, or ordering off of a menu.  To my surprise, my dad and aunt were the only people to order the traditional option.  Everyone else got pasta, steak, soup, or even sushi (my brother actually did get sushi for Thanksgiving)!  When I asked why after dinner, most everyone confessed that they didn't actually like the whole meal of Thanksgiving.  If the Thanksgiving meal isn't one everyone enjoys than why is it continued year after year?  Are traditions a reflection of society or a counter to the typical tastes and practices of modern life?  And if they are the later why do we as a society keep them up?

Preggo

Hey everyone reading my blog! This is an informal post but it would be great if you could check out my brother's movie: Preggo! I think you all will really like it! You can get to it through youtube on the link below (but no pressure I swear)! Thanks!

Click hereto view!

Harry Potter 7

Like a large percentage of New Trier students, I saw Harry Potter 7: Part 1 at midnight on Thursday.  And like a complete nerd I dressed up, but that is not the point of this blog post.  In class these past weeks we are working on connecting the Crucible to a 'perilous times' period in America's history.  We are using civil liberties limitations to connect our war to the witch trials in the crucible.

I am in the group of the Cold War and it was my job to discuss Senator Joe McCarthy (for background information on the senator click here). A word that appeared often in my research was McCarthyism.  This word did not just apply to that specific era in history but is applied whenever there is endorsement of unfair accusation and evidence against a group of people.  I started to think about the connotations of linking to certain events in history.

I noticed during several instances in Harry Potter that the army for the Ministry of Magic wore red armbands.  The movie mentioned how the government wanted a "pure-blood" society, and the government was seen making propaganda posters against the half-blood and 'mud-blood' wizards.  If you haven't already guessed, there is a very clear link to the Nazi government and their soldiers.

This link evoked a strong emotion towards the actions, that would not have been evident without the link.  It gave a tangible connections to previous thoughts and feelings and applied them to this situation.  It told the audience how to think.  The connotations of Nazis is pure evil.  How does this transfer to the view we are told to have of the Ministry?

How do links to real world events strengthen or weaken fictional stories?  How do connotations applied to the events linked affect the way the work is received?