Your alarm goes off and you peel your eyes open to be partially blinded by your phone’s screen.  The time reads 5:30am and you sit up straight and begin to stretch.  Out in the kitchen you make yourself a cup of coffee and rest before beginning to prepare the biggest feast of the year.  The menu is the same every year, but you still find yourself meticulously going over each recipe to make sure you didn’t forget any ingredients.  No one wants to run to the neighbor’s house today to ask for a forgotten can of cream, or half cup of sugar.

After you contend that you have everything you could possibly need you begin to prepare the traditional dishes.  Slowly and steadily the table begins to fill.  The rest of the house wakes up to the sweet aroma of cooking foods. The family is immediately hungry and eager for the feast to come.  You take a short break to watch the parade, and get ready to welcome family and old friends to share in the spirit of….

Thanksgiving? Fiesta? The end of that sentence is entirely up to you, Bahala ka.

On the surface these events seem very different, but the purpose of these celebrations is rooted in values that know no cultural bounds.  Family, food, and cultural pride.

Family.

Fiesta, or Thanksgiving, family travels far and wide to come home and celebrate with their loved ones.  The house is brought to life by warm hugs and conversations of life in the year (or years) past.

Food.

These holidays are nothing without the food!  Buko salad, lechon, pansit, fried chicken, macaroni salad, fruit salad, among others grace the table during fiesta as stuffing, turkey, sweet potato casserole, and cranberry sauce do during Thanksgiving.

Cultural Pride.

Both of these celebrations have parades that go along with them that highlight distinctive traits of their respective cultures.   It had never occurred to me how deeply cultural the Thanksgiving day parade was until I saw the fiesta parades of the Philippines.

To me, the fiesta parades illustrated cultural value, history, and folklore.  The dancers describe historical happenings, and the floats are designed to highlight important foods and exports.  The Thanksgiving day parade is no different.  The Thanksgiving day parade highlights foods that are typically used in it’s celebration, turkey, pumpkins, apples.  We also dress in costume that is meant to be a tribute to the history of the holiday (the accuracy of this costume and version of history is another story).  Many of it’s floats and acts are unique to the United States, whether they feature TV cartoon characters, a scene from a new Broadway show, or well-known celebrities.

It’s a fascinating experience to take a step back, and analyze my own culture on a larger scale.  Describing the culture of the United States to people who have never experienced it, is a very difficult task.  People want generalizations.

What do Americans eat?

What do Americans wear?

What sort of things do Americans do?

I always find it impossible to answer questions that generalize about the United States, because we are a country of such vast cultural diversity.  Of course not EVERYONE in The United States celebrates Thanksgiving the same, but it’s one of the few generalizations I feel comfortable making.

Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, it holds a different meaning for different people. For my family it’s the epitome of autumn celebrations.  Thanksgiving signifies the end of fall and the beginning of the Christmas season.  It’s a time for family and to be thankful. Usually at my home we celebrate by cooking up all of the traditional foods, and a few of our own specialties (chocolate chocolate cake, cheesecake by mistake, to name a few of my mom’s famous dishes).  We eat far too much and end up watching the movie ‘Elf’ in our sleepy, stuffed, stupor to officially start the Christmas season.

This year I taught my host nieces how to make hand turkeys, baked apple pie and stuffing.  Tonight I’ll feel a little homesick while I video chat with my family, and I’ll make them turn the camera towards the television so I can watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

As the ‘firsts’ turn into ‘lasts’ this year, I can’t help but wonder maybe next year I’ll be experiencing similar feelings as I force feed my family in the United States buko salad to celebrate fiesta…