Sunderland's links to the USA, and Thanksgiving explained

Thanksgiving this year is on November 23, but what is it?

Hollywood lets us believe that Thanksgiving is a peculiarly American occasion. Television and film suggests that failing to return home for the event is borderline illegal in the USA.

It's held every fourth Thursday in November across the states. But it isn't uniquely American. Far from it.

Canada for example celebrates its Thanksgiving on each second Monday in October. It is celebrated in many countries in varying degrees.

In the UK the Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving is traditionally held on or near the Sunday of the harvest moon occurring closest to the autumnal equinox; something that has happened since way before the "New World".

However, most Brits are oblivious to this and a Sunday-of-the-harvest-moon-occurring-closest-to-the-autumnal-equinox knees-up is something of a rarity these days.

Thanks is being given for the harvest. There are religious connotations, but Britain's Harvest Festival has pre-Christian roots. Saxons would offer the first crops to fertility gods, although they would clearly have been better off scoffing it themselves.

In modern-day America, Thanksgiving is a national holiday. It is a significantly more religious nation than the UK and the first "modern" American Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the "New" World in November 1621.

This particular blow-out lasted three days. The Pilgrims did not observe Christmas; presumably in late December they were still stuffed to the toes from Thanksgiving.

In recent years something called "Friendsgiving" has been concocted Stateside and is evidently as cloying as it sounds. It essentially means having Thanksgiving with your mates instead of your family.

Allegedly popular with Millennials, no one is sure who to blame for the abhorrence of Friendsgiving, although the greetings card industry is a prominent suspect.

Pardoning the turkey

This being the USA, copious guzzling is inevitably at the heart of proceedings with a turkey the centrepiece of the meal.

This inescapably involves the demise of the unfortunate bird. However, one turkey always gets lucky.

US presidents usually have little to do and can easily find time for a spot of turkey pardoning.

Since at least 1873 the president has been presented with a turkey. Usually too many turkeys. In 1947 President Harry Truman was the first to receive this gift on the White House lawn. This is now an annual tradition.

There is disagreement, but it's generally considered that the tradition of pardoning the turkey was only established on November 19, 1963 when President Kennedy decided to reprieve the bird from his plate. This found widespread approval; particularly among the turkey community.

Subsequent presidents have upheld the practice of sparing a Thanksgiving turkey; which seems bizarre considering what happened to Kennedy in Dallas three days later. Clearly they don't believe in omens.

Black Friday

An unintended and largely unwanted consequence of Thanksgiving is Black Friday. This began in the USA and predictably spread to the rest of the "civilised" world.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and supposedly the first day of Christmas shopping. There are bargains to be had with retailers cranking up the greed.

Without those 1621 Pilgrims, we might never have established the heartwarming tradition of charging down to Curry's to engage in a physical brawl over a heavily discounted steam iron.

Wearside links with the USA: Washington

Eighteenth US President Ulysses Grant attended the public ceremony where the Mayor of Sunderland ceremonially laid the first stone of the then-town's museum in 1877.

But the best known American link we have is Washington.

This particular part of Wearside was not, as is sometimes wrongly supposed, named after the first US president, George Washington. It has had that name, or variations thereof, for around a thousand years.

Part of Sunderland since 1974, it understandably trades on its connection to George with the beautiful Washington Old Hall (well worth a visit), the first president's ancestral home which has been around in various guises since 973AD.

But George Washington never visited England. He was born in Virginia in 1732. His great-grandfather, John Washington, emigrated from Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, to Virginia in 1656.

George Washington led the Patriots to victory over the British in the 1775-83 American War of Independence, becoming president in 1789 and - get this - never so much as apologised to us.

To this day the USA refuses to see the error of its ways and stubbornly declines to do the right thing; politely ask to be brought back under British rule.

So while Washington Old Hall rightly makes much of the connection, the reality is that had George ever turned up there he would have been A. Spectacularly lost and B. Hanged.

The link has since been cemented by the visit of President Jimmy Carter to Wearside in 1977 and the 2006 partnership between Washington DC and Washington CD (County Durham (ooh, controversial)).

Philadelphia

Unlike Wearside's Washington, Wearside's Philadelphia was named after its more famous American namesake.

A colliery owner named the place after city in Pennsylvania following the capture of Philadelphia in 1777 by the British during the American War of Independence. That again. Much good it did the British.

This might seem a little presumptuous on the part of the colliery owner. However, there are plenty of places in the US named after British cities including Sunderlands in Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon and Vermont (combined population about 6,000).

The word Philadelphia is Greek for "brotherly love". Hence the Pennsylvania settlement is nicknamed the City of Brotherly Love, yet we rarely hear the Wearside version referred to as the Area Between Shiney Row and Newbottle - of Love.

There is no Witherwack in New Mexico. That's an urban myth.

(proper) Football

To date three Americans have played for Sunderland AFC. They are Claudio Reyna, who belongs in the category "Classy", Lynden Gooch ("Tenacious") and Jozy Altidore ("Other").

Reyna's son Giovanni plays for the US and Borussia Dortmund. He was born in Sunderland in 2002.

Happy Thanksgiving y'all. Now that you know what it is.