Filipino Thanksgiving Day: When?

We wish the United States a blessed and happy Thanksgiving Day. In a matter of hours, the traditional turkey dinner garnished with yam, cranberry paste, traditional delicacies and wine is shared by family members and friends who arrived home from near and afar to celebrate the holiday rich in history.

On the early hours of November’s last Thursday, while finding for good local programs on my radio set and from the internet, anchors extensively discuss the history and significance of the great American holiday. Some entertain calls from the US sharing their thoughts on turkey day.

Since we copied the US version of Halloween, extravagant and material celebration of Christmas and yes, even their radical secularism and relativism, I wonder if there is also a “Thanksgiving Day” here in the country.

At the moment, I doubt. Filipinos are not accustomed with the turkey taste and not all is familiar in roasting the bird with stuffing and the right combination of spices.

There’s nothing wrong if we have our own national Thanksgiving Day --- a day when the country stands still and give thanks to God or Allah, a time when we give our due as a nation to the Almighty and give thanks for the love our relatives, friends and loved ones shared.

Probably, (extravagant) thanksgiving is better when tendered many times in a year when there is a graduation, a birthday, a wedding, passing a board exam, an approved visa to visit a foreign country, election victory, job promotion, house-warming, successful surgery, safe arrival from another place or country, new car or whenever one feels proper to give thanks to the Lord.

If and when we have our own Thanksgiving Day and if we are indeed a good copycat, it will be great to feel the aura when one people under one flag with different languages, creed and ethnicity come together and savor the meaning of brotherhood and acknowledge that everything we have come from above.

When will that be?

To our American friends, Maligayang Araw ng Pagpapasalamat (Happy Thanksgiving Day) and Maligayang Araw ng mga Pabo (Happy Turkey Day). -30-

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Photo Credit:
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