CHRISTMAS

Christmas in Boston and in Murcia are very much the same:

- In both cities, people who own stores decorate them with the Christmas spirit; some people decorate their houses and, in both cities, the streets are lighted.

Murcia

- Families get together to celebrate this Holiday and also the new year.

Boston

However, there are some differences:

- In Boston, instead of the Three Wise Kings, they celebrate Santa Claus' visit, who delivers presents the night before Christmas (kids prepair their stockings for Santa Claus to put their gifts inside them). 

Santa Claus

- Here, during the night of the 5^th of January (when the Three Wise Kings come to every house to put the presents under the Christmas tree), people organize a parade to see them. And it’s very common to eat the “Roscón de Reyes”, that night or the next morning.

Three Wise Kings during the parade

The Hannukah Menorah

- In Boston, nowadays, people on the street say: ”Happy holidays!” instead of: “Happy Christmas!” because in Boston there are many cultures and they respect all of them: some people celebrate Christmas but others celebrate, for example, Hannukah (it’s a  eight-day Jewish holiday that is celebrated because the Maccabees successfully rebelled against  Antiochus IV Epiphanes; according to the Talmud -a late text- the Temple was purified and the wicks of the menorah miraculously burned for eight days, even though there was only enough sacred oil for one day's lighting).

Snow in Boston

Snow in Boston

- In American schools, after Christmas holidays, classes start the 2^nd of January and, in Spain, because of the Three Wise Kings’ visit, we start the 7^th of January.

- In Boston, during these days, it usually snows a lot and Christmas is really a "white Christmas".

But the most important thing is that Jesus was born 2014 years ago and lots of people around the world celebrate this.

THANKSGIVING DAY

In USA, people celebrate Thanksgiving Day, to remember the day, long time ago, when the Pilgrims arrived at Massachusetts and gave thanks to God for the goods they had.

Mayflower Ship

Plimoth Plantation

Plimoth Plantation

It all started in the year 1620. A ship named Mayflower sailed, from Plymouth (England) to “the New World” (America), with 102 passengers: some of them who didn´t agree with the church in England and others who were hoping to find jobs in the other land; but all of them wanted to begin new lives.

The Mayflower reached the coast of what is now Massachusetts and the village was called Plimoth. 

Pilgrim in Plimoth Plantation

Pilgrim in Plimoth Plantation

When they arrived, they were in really bad conditions, some of them had died, some were ill and couldn´t find food. One day, a native called Squanto appeared and, because he had been a slave for some time with an English sea captain, he could speak English and communicate with the English people. He showed them to hunt, fish and plant in those conditions. During the time they were living there, they were working hard and the fall of 1621 they had a great harvest: there was plenty of corn, salted fish and meat and lots of vegetables, like pumpkins, cranberries,…They felt grateful to God and offered him a thanksgiving feast with the natives.

William Lockhart Made The First Thanksgiving 1621,
by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris(1863–1930).

Pilgrims in Plimoth Plantation

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday of November a holiday. But it was not an official holiday. Finally in 1941, American Congress voted to make the fourth Thursday of November the annual day. And ever since, they all give thanks every year at the same time.

Nowadays, people celebrate Thanksgiving with great feasts with roast turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, etc…

When I was living in Boston, we also celebrated Thanksgiving Day with my parent’s friends and their kids. It’s a day, in USA, in which everybody, American or not, join together to celebrate it.

References: 

- Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce. Pilgrims. Magic Tree House Research Guide. Ed. Random House. ISBN 0-375-83219-X.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States). Reviewed: 11/30/2013