Vlad, I copied this from Wikipedia. Maybe it will help explain our "Thanksgiving day.
Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a holiday celebrated in the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. It has officially been an annual tradition since 1863, when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.[1] As a federal and popular holiday in the U.S., Thanksgiving is one of the major holidays of the year. Together with Christmas and the New Year, Thanksgiving is a part of the broader holiday season.
The event that some Americans commonly call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims to give thanks to God for guiding them safely to the New World.[2] The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days, providing enough food for 53 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans.[3] The feast consisted of fish (cod, eels, and bass) and shellfish (clams, lobster, and mussels), wild fowl (ducks, geese, swans, and turkey), venison, berries and fruit, vegetables (peas, pumpkin, beetroot and possibly, wild or cultivated onion), harvest grains (barley and wheat), and the Three Sisters: beans, dried Indian maize or corn, and squash.[2][4][5][6] The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings"—days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought.[7]
And here is Cyber Monday
Cyber Monday
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cyber Monday
Observed by United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany and Chile
Date Monday after Black Friday
2010 date November 29
2011 date November 28
2012 date November 26
Celebrations Shopping
Related to U.S. Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Christmas
Cyber Monday is a marketing term for the Monday immediately following Black Friday, the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, created by companies to persuade people to shop online. The term made its debut on November 28, 2005 in a Shop.org press release entitled "'Cyber Monday' Quickly Becoming One of the Biggest Online Shopping Days of the Year".[1]
According to the Shop.org/BizRate Research 2005 eHoliday Mood Study, "77 percent of online retailers said that their sales increased substantially on the Monday after Thanksgiving, a trend that is driving serious online discounts and promotions on Cyber Monday this year (2005)". In 2010, comScore[2] reported that consumers spent $1.028 Billion online on Cyber Monday (excluding travel, 2009: $887M), the highest spending day of 2010.
In 2006, Shop.org announced that it launched the CyberMonday.com portal, a one-stop shop for Cyber Monday deals.[3] Cyber Monday has become an international marketing term used by online retailers in Canada, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Germany and Chile.
And of course, every bodies favorite, BLACK FRIDAY! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/barf.gif" alt="" />
Black Friday (shopping)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Black Friday Shopping
Black Friday Shopping
Day after Thanksgiving shopping at Walmart in 2009
Observed by United States
Date Friday after U.S. Thanksgiving
2010 date November 26
2011 date November 25
2012 date November 23
Celebrations Shopping
Related to Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day, U.S. Thanksgiving and Christmas
Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season, similar to Boxing Day sales in many Commonwealth Nations. Black Friday is not actually a holiday, but some non-retail employers give their employees the day off, increasing the number of potential shoppers. It has routinely been the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005,[1] although news reports, which at that time were inaccurate,[2] have described it as the busiest shopping day of the year for a much longer period of time.[3]
The day's name originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy and disruptive pedestrian and vehicle traffic which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.[4] Use of the term started before 1966 and began to see broader use outside Philadelphia around 1975. Later an alternative explanation began to be offered: that "Black Friday" indicates the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black".[5]
For many years, it was common for retailers to open at 6:00, but in the late 2000s, many had crept to 5:00 or even 4:00. This was taken to a new extreme in 2011, when several retailers (including Target, Kohls, Macy's, Best Buy, and Bealls) opened at midnight for the first time. An online petition with more than 200,000 virtual signatures is aimed at asking Target not to open so early.[6] Walmart opened at 10:00 pm on Thanksgiving and Toys 'R' Us at 9:00 pm. In 2010, Sears was open on Thanksgiving Day.
Because Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States, the day after occurs between the 23rd and the 29th of November.
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