USATourist Community

06-08-2007 5:02 PM

Mike Leco Joined on 06-06-2007 Posts 519

Christmas Season in the USA Reply Contact This was originally posted to our old Forum: Author Message Mike Leco USATourist Administrator Joined: 14 Jun 2004 Posts: 101 Location: Pittsburgh Pennsylvania USA Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 8:34 am    Post subject: Christmas Season in the USA    Halloween is the festival when people decorate their front porches with pumkins and cornstalks, when little kids dress in costumes and go door to door in search of free candy. There are no extra days off of work, as Halloween is typically a children's holiday. At the end of October, the Halloween decorations disappear and everyone begins preparation for Thanksgiving Day, our next big holiday. We celebrate that the third Thursday in November. It is a family oriented holiday, when everyone gets an extra day or two off of work, and most folks return home for a big Thanksgiving meal with the entire family. The airports, bus terminals and highways will be very busy as many children and grandchildren travel home for a big Thanksgiving feast. Traditionally, a large turkey is stuffed with savory filling and roasted. 6, 8,10 or even 12 Kg turkeys are frequently prepared for the great feast. Macy's department store in New York City traditionally hosts a huge Thanksgiving Day parade through Manhattan. It features marching bands, decorated floats and giant balloons in the shape of animals and cartoon characters. At the end of the parade, Santa Claus rides down the street to signal the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. All of the department stores, shops and shopping malls across the USA will feature big sales events during that weekend. The Saturday following Thanksgiving is usually the biggest shopping day of the year. From the day after Thanksgiving until January 1 is considered the holiday season or the Christmas holiday time in the USA. All of the stores and shopping malls across the country will be decorated in Christmas themes. Streets and public places will feature decorations. Many private home owners will decorate their homes with colored lights. Some of the home owners will hang thousands of tiny colored lights on their houses, trees and shrubbery. A few will go completely wild and decorate their homes and yards with tens of thousands of colored lights plus animated displays and lighted effigies of Santas, snowmen, nutcrackers or mangers commemorating the birth of Jesus. Tourists often come to the USA during the Chistmas season to see all of the holiday decorations. New York City is a favorite destination. I think it is nice to see the fabulous decorations in the cities and shopping malls. New York City certainly offers a good selection of decorations in its stores and public places, but so do most other cities. I personally prefer the decorations on the private homes in the local neighborhoods. Many of the suburban communities, especially in the northwestern states, become winter wonderlands at this time of year. Driving through some of the suburbban neighborhoods after a new snowfall can be awe inspiring. Street after street reveal rows of houses twinkling with colored gems that reflect off of the blanket of white snow. Here and there, the spectacular displays of overdecorated houses with their 50,000 lights and illuminated Christmas effigies or animated characters create little fantasy islands of gleaming light in the peaceful winter scene. To see this real Christmas spectacle, you must get away from the urban centers and venture into the suburban bedroom communities out at the fringes of the metropolitan areas. If you ask the residents of any suburban community, they can usually point you in the direction of the best Christmas lighting scenery and can direct you to the fabulous splendor of the few overdecorated houses.

Filed under: New York City, Christmas