Thankful for two years cancer free, my son is getting good grades and doing good at soccer and martial arts (the two things I did growing up) and the company I work for is growing massively and work is still interesting.
It’s been a rough year and I came very close to being furloughed. Managed to get a new client just at the right time and now I’m thriving again. I’m thankful for having frankly a lot of luck over the years which has put me where I am today. I’m not saying hard work wasn’t important too, but sheer luck has been helpful too.
So many things are, frankly, out of our control, and we act like they aren’t sometimes. I think being thankful is a way of acknowledging that the lines fell out in pleasant places.
Oh man, that is so good. So many people living with chronic pain would love one single day of “nothing.” Children and others suffering constant abuse would be so grateful for a day of “nothing.” In war, what is a cease-fire but some “nothing” for a change?
So, have you signed up with some ancestor research company to find out what you and your family are personally responsible for? Which slave names are the results of your great great grandfather’s rape? What theft, what oppression, what abuse did your people inflict on others? Do you care?
How many aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters did your family personally kill, in war or in cold blood? Could you count them all?
Are you committing to seeking out and making good all the past offenses and atrocities of your own personal family, and show us how it ought to be done?
OR - you could accept the past as it is because it won’t change, flawed and time-locked as it was, with good examples and bad, but that’s what happened. Forgive yourself and your ancestors and mourn for those who were hurt. We absolutely need to accept the truth to learn and grow.
That doesn’t mean we have nothing to be thankful for today. I daresay even you might find something to be thankful for if you thought about it, Satan.
My Pathfinder group, who agree with me that to (fictionally) run screaming at people with a lit black powder bomb in my hands is the right thing to do.
Something can have historical significance and also be rampantly commercialized at the same time. These are not mutually exclusive things.
Imagine yourself as a historian from a 1000 years from now. When you look back at the coca cola bottles, the Walmart signs, the oversized trucks all unearthed from the forgotten sands of time, you won’t see it and say ‘there is no culture or historical significance to be found here’. Instead, you will contemplate on what crises this century was going through that turned so many to overconsumption and yet still feel dead on the inside.
Your so called ‘lack of culture’ in holidays that are filled with superficial excuses from corporations to spend is history and culture in the making. This isn’t an assessment on whether this is good or bad, this is history regardless of what you may think of it. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you realize that maybe Americans are not the homogeneous entity you thought it was. Maybe when you look beyond the glamorous decorations and lavish spending, you will see there are families struggling to feed their 5 five kids and yet still do their best to bring the holiday spirit to the table.
I’m not an American, so I don’t have any stakes in this. I’ve lived in 5 countries, USA included, and I’m tired of people abroad complaining about the lack of culture in the US while gleefully importing American movies, music, franchises, movies, holidays, spending habits, slangs, etc. You can’t have it both ways. Either the US doesn’t have culture, or it does and it’s being exported. Pick one.
That’s the most odd thing anyone said about culture and history of civilization. Events should be fun, it should let future generations learn, it should become better and should bring new ideas.
The American culture gives nothing fun, there’s no generation learning because they block it, it doesn’t become better because things like concerts cost $200 or a walk to the park cost federal money to enter. Zero ideas instead they are killing all ideas including their own like Rock and Roll.
When people say America has no culture, it absolutely does mean they don’t have culture.
Brazil commemorates Thanksgiving? In what bizarro world? I’ve never met a single person here who ever did that, in fact the vast majority of people have absolutely no clue what Thanksgiving is or that it even exists.
The author is just pulling this shit out of their asses lol.
Maybe, but that’s like 0.1% of the population, there aren’t many American communities in Brazil. Maybe it’s a thing in Americana (a town founded by ex-confederates, I shit you not), but otherwise…
6000 to Brazil more especifically, somewhat insignificant number if you ask me considering the number of germans, italians, japanese and arabs that immigrated here.
I know, 6000 people mostly concetrated in the town of Americana with roughly 250k citizens (not all American descendants obviously), so if there’s a place that might celebrate Thanksgiving in Brazil, it’s there.
This article in Wikipedia mentions Brazil under “Observance.” Apparently there are a couple of Brazilian laws that establish Thanksgiving as a holiday and set its date as the fourth Thursday in November.
So maybe edit Wikipedia? Note to them that it isn’t known or celebrated?
I really wish I hadn’t mentioned Brazil or Japan. I was just interested in what people were thankful for. I’m truly sorry if I offended Brazilian or Japanese people.
It is a wishful-thinking style article on the web where some yank once met some yank who lived in Brazil and thus decided from this that every person in Brazil celebrated the USian holiday. Same in Japan, who definitely do not celebrate thanksgiving any more than Brazil does. But the yanks all think the world revolves around them.
Certainly not, but it is at least a holiday that is recognized in an official capacity and a lot of people get the day off from work or get out early. From what I’m hearing in the other comments, Brazil doesn’t really do anything at all, so it’s more of a holiday in Japan than it is in Brazil.
If other countries had a public holiday on January First, would that mean they celebrate Federation Day? If they had a public holiday later on in January, then are they celebrating my countries Invasion Day?
Yes, it is the same day as one in America. No, that doesn’t mean the Japanese are all celebrating a US thanksgiving.
It’s not always the same day, this year is just coincidental.
Being a holiday established during the post-war US occupation of Japan, though, I wouldn’t say it is entirely disconnected from the US holiday. It was willed into existence by Americans based on the fact that the US also celebrates a holiday around that time of year, and so the name is not coincidental.
I’d consider them as related as Christmas and Yule, at least.
I’m thankful for the shelter, heat, and electrical power I worked hard to have this year, that I am debt free and have enough in the bank to make it at least to spring without working if I wanted to. I’m thankful that my family members are still all alive and that the future still has hope.
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