US Vice President Kamala Harris helps put together Thanksgiving dinner at DC Central Kitchen in Washington, DC, on November 28, 2024. Agence France-Presse
NEW YORK — Parades, soccer and feasts have been on the menu Thursday as Individuals celebrated the annual Thanksgiving vacation, with stormy skies and the bitterly fought election hanging over many households’ festivities.
Regardless of a driving rain in New York, crowds nonetheless confirmed as much as watch as ornate floats and mega-balloons made their technique to Macy’s, the enduring division retailer and sponsor of the annual parade.
Comparable occasions have been held in cities throughout america to mark the vacation, which has been celebrated for hundreds of years and codified in 1941 as falling on the fourth Thursday of November.
READ: Thanksgiving 2024: Ideas for decreasing vacation journey stress
Considered as a second for households to get collectively — sometimes round an enormous meal starring a roast turkey — it’s the busiest journey season of the 12 months.
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A file of practically 80 million folks have been anticipated to hit the roads, fly or use another methodology to journey over 50 miles (80 kilometers) across the vacation, in response to estimates by the nationwide car group AAA.
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However many needed to deal with a significant storm system that swept throughout the nation this week, which was persevering with Thursday to dump rain and snow on the northeast, together with in New York and Boston.
The vacation additionally options a number of NFL soccer matches, which many Individuals watch in a post-feast slumber.
‘Radical left lunatics’
Households divided over their political beliefs have been additionally bracing for potential strife, with the vacation gatherings the primary for the reason that November 5 election received by Donald Trump.
With the extremely divisive Republican’s return to the White Home, many households are hoping to fully keep away from dialogue of politics.
READ: The place Thanksgiving dinner falls from the sky
Some are forgoing household gatherings altogether, akin to Deb Miedema in Minnesota.
“I can’t think about making ready a meal for 40 folks and half of them are OK with this case,” the 50-year-old instructed AFP this week.
“Trump doesn’t cease telling lies, he’s a felony, and all of that’s fantastic with them.”
Joe Biden was spending his final Thanksgiving as president with household on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts, the place he visited a neighborhood hearth division and briefly spoke to reporters.
Requested what he was grateful for, the 82-year-old replied: “My household, the peaceable transition of the presidency, and I’m grateful by the grace of God we have been in a position to make extra progress within the Center East.”
In Washington, Vice President Kamala Harris visited a neighborhood meals nonprofit to assist put together free meals, the place she was requested by reporters what was subsequent for her after her loss to Trump.
“Thanksgiving dinner,” she joked.
Like Biden, she was scheduled to make calls with navy service members for the vacation.
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Trump, for his half, posted on social media: “Glad Thanksgiving to all, together with to the Radical Left Lunatics who’ve labored so arduous to destroy our Nation, however who’ve miserably failed.”
