Now that many of us are celebrating Thanksgiving physically away from our friends and family, we’ve created some fun ways to engage and interact with your guests – in person or over ZOOM. Please find the following links to three easy games to play – just print them out:
- FoodPlay Talk Turkey Cards – to spark conversation during your Thanksgiving meal!
- FoodPlay Thanksgiving Trivia Game – to test your knowledge!
- FoodPlay Thanksgiving – True or False – A game to test your Food Smarts!
Before we start to play, a short intro – What is Thanksgiving?
Today, Thanksgiving offers us the opportunity to learn more about our history, give thanks for our blessings, share food and stories, and enjoy a day with loved ones.
After surviving the first brutal winter and a gracious food supply, the Pilgrims held a 3-day harvest feast with the native Wampanoag Indians to celebrate and give thanks. Without the help of New England tribes, the colonists would not have been able to survive. It should be noted that Native Americans were having harvest celebrations and prayer ceremonies of thanksgiving for food and for life hundreds of years before the colonists arrived.
For many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is considered to be “A Day of Mourning” as it is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their cultures. For Native Americans, the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers is not something to celebrate. For those of us who are not Native American, we must remember how the Pilgrims could not have survived without the help of the indigenous people already living there, and that the tradition of thanking the Creator for the Harvest was and is always an important and sacred part of Native Traditions.
Despite all of the challenges, according to the 2010 Census, there are over 5.2 million people identified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination with another race in the United States, with numbers expected to be much higher in the 2020 Census. And, there are 574 federally recognized tribal nations and Alaska native villages, according to the National Congress of American Indians.
It is important to recognize that every place we occupy was once the homeland for indigenous people, who were most likely violently forced out of their land. You can research online to find out about the people and history of the land you currently reside on.
Wishing you the best,
From all of us at FoodPlay