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Good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning. Depends on when you're watching this.
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Thank you for watching. I'm going to teach you about Thanksgiving.
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Thanksgiving is a holiday that is exclusive to North America. Oh, except Mexico.
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So it's exclusive to Canada and America. You may be wondering, "How is Canada and America even different?"
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Well, we have a lot of things that are different, the first one being the dates of Thanksgiving.
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In Canada, Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October. Get your calendars out.
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I didn't look at what date the second Monday was in October.
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But look at your calendar, "First Monday, no. Second Monday, yes."
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So in Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving the second Monday in October. In America, however, it's closer to Christmas.
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It's one -- almost one month away from Christmas, which is December 25th, for your information.
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In America, it's celebrated the fourth Thursday in November, or you can think of it as the last Thursday in November.
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I actually looked this up. This year being 2013, it's actually November 28th.
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So if you live in America, on November 28th it is Thanksgiving.
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If you live in Canada, it will be the second Monday in October.
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Interesting little tidbit of history for you: We didn't officially have a Thanksgiving holiday.
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And it is, actually, a holiday in Canada and America -- until 1957.
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One of the great, great people that work at the parliament buildings decided to give us a holiday in October.
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And it happened in 1957. It was official that the second Monday in October would be Thanksgiving.
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In America, this happened a long, long time ago.
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From the information that I've seen, it actually happened in 1863 with this guy named Abraham Lincoln.
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Have you heard of this guy? He was the president of America around this time, and he made this a holiday.
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So what is Thanksgiving? Basically, it is to say thanks. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for giving -- what? Thanksgiving.
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What happened was a lot of people left Europe and came and settled in Canada and America.
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These people were called "pilgrims." People -- also called them "settlers."
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So these people came from Europe and lived in Canada or North America.
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They had nothing. So they planted seeds. They produced their own food.
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Luckily, they actually were able to grow in the soil in Canada and America, and they gave thanks for the harvest.
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And as I've seen -- because Abraham Lincoln seemed to be a religious fellow.
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He would give thanks to God. Who's God? I don't know.
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So it is actually -- in America, at this time, it was kind of a religious thing that they would give thanks to God for giving them food.
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In Canada, however, in 1957, we were just very happy to have a harvest. And "harvest" means food.
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You spend a lot of your time planting seeds, watering seeds, growing the seeds.
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It's time to eat that. And that's called a "harvest."
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What do we do? What do we do on Thanksgiving? Well, we eat food.
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We eat food that is grown specifically, or ready specifically in October. This includes things like squash or turnip or pumpkin.
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I'll draw you a picture. I'm not really good at drawing pictures of fruit -- but turnip or squash.
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We also have potatoes. I love potatoes. And the main food that we have in Thanksgiving is a big turkey.
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Now, maybe you've never seen or had a turkey before.
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It looks like a chicken, except it's really, really much bigger and, in my opinion, not as tasty.
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Traditionally, for Thanksgiving, we're going to have a turkey dinner with seasonal vegetables and gravy.
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Also very, very, very, very popular in America is American football.
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They have, on Thanksgiving, a big American football competition where guys running around in spandex.
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Hug each other, throw a ball -- fun times. And food, food, food.
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The other thing that they celebrate more in America than in Canada is they have parades.
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In New York City, they will have a Thanksgiving Day parade where people will dress up like pilgrims or settlers, and maybe turkeys.
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And they would walk and celebrate the harvest in New York City.
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"That sounds strange." It's true.
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Do you have a holiday like this in your country that you celebrate the harvest in October or November?
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I think you might. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, EnglishLessons4U.
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And let me know about your holiday of the harvest. Goodbye. Happy eating and Thanksgiver.