Prompt: What are your families tradition for the Thanksgiving holidays? How does tradition serve as a basis for families, cultural, and family identity? How can tradition be a positive as well as a negative force for individuals and society?

My family and I have a very simple tradition for Thanksgiving. We have Thanksgiving dinner at my house and invite my mom’s sister down to have dinner with us and go shopping. My mom and I make the food all day to have it ready by 5 o’clock so we can eat then. After we eat and clean up the table from the dishes we grab the new paper with all the ads in it and debate on where we want to go. Normally we have a list of everything we are looking for and a list of what we really need. Then we make a map of how we are going to conquer or list and where to go and what time to go.

This serves as a basis for my family and the identity. No matter what comes up we always have dinner at our house and invite my mom’s sister. This is the basis because we always do that no matter what. We care for our family and we show that by having them come over and share this special meal with us. We only invite my mom’s sister because she is the only one that is willing to come down. Going shopping is the main identity for my family on this holiday because we always go out when the stores open. Everyone we know knows that when it comes to Black Friday we always go shopping to get most of the gifts we give out for Christmas. That is our true family identity on Thanksgiving is the shopping aspect.

Traditions can be a negative because you always do the same thing and it can get boring. As for the positive you know what you are going to do and you can prepare for it the right way. As society wise it keeps people buying most of the same things they normally by and doesn’t cause a world of panic because people don’t know what to do. A negative to the society is that since we have had Thanksgiving for a while we could grow old of it and just skip it.