Hellooooooo World!
Im back to creating articles where my heart and brain merges as one.
Today, I would looooooove to join in with 
Honestly, it's pretty cool to have a celebration dedicated for gratitude or just simply being grateful. For me, every time I hear or read about THANKSGIVING, the first thing that pops in my beautiful and gorgeous head (😂😅), is no other than is their humongous TURKEY! Oh yeah, the bigger the turkey the better. Sadly, here in the Philippines, we do not celebrate or have a special holdiday for Thanksgiving. We do not have that, though we only celebrate our version of Thanksgiving on special ocassions. But not as graaaaaaand as your Thanksgiving Day in your areas, where turkeys and pies are everywhere!!!!
Allow me to share with you my little research, that there are countries who have special traditions or reasons for celebrating Thanksgiving. So, it is not just the TURKEY that makes the centerpiece!
CANADA > giving thanks for the safety of their fleet
GERMANY > harvest festival of thanks
LIBERIA > end of slave trade (freedom!!!!)
JAPAN > celebration of the rights of Japan workers
NETHERLANDS > commemoration of the breaking from Spanish Seige
CHINA > Mid-Autum or Mooncake festival (worshipping the moon and eating mooncakes)
These are just but a few countries that I have read about who celebrates Thanksgiving other than the United States of America (USA). Actually, they do not just have a fatty Turkey in their tables, they serve anything that they have in abundance like the chicken, fruits and other vegetables.
Here, in the Philippines, we do not really cook much on TURKEYS. They are not usually found in our backyard. We are more on other livestock animals like the pig, carabao, chicken, goats, cattles, swines, etc. What we are known for really is the LECHON (roasted pig). There is no big and small celebration without LECHON in the table. When there is lechon, there is something that the family is celebrating and is thankful too, like birthdays, graduation, fiesta, christmas, store opening, product launching and other big events (mostly on fiestas!!!). I think lechon has been the most craved menu whenever there is a special occasion. If you cannot afford the whole piece of the pig, there are who sold it in kilos and what we call Belly Lechons. Still, it's a lechon (a part of it, yes!) and it symbolizes celebration and gratitude.
Honestly, I have not yet eaten a turkey in my whole life. My international friends often describe is as more like a chicken, a BIG BIG chicken. I never had the chance to cook or bake a TURKEY as well because it is quite expensive here in our country and growing it is costly as well, only a few can afford to order and cook in a turkey. But, mostly they would rather have a roasted cattle instead of turkey. Maybe, we are not used to chicken and their family as our star of the feast. We are Lechon Lovers since then! We cannot resist the crunchiness of the pig'skin, its sounds drive us super crazy! Lechon is not lechon if no crunchy skin at all.
My sister 
Maybe, we do not really call it THANKSGIVING day here, but we do celebrate and thank G for everything that we have, we say thanks for whatever we have accomplished and forever grateful for the upcoming days of our lives. I guess, we call it in different names or occasions but similarly we have one guiding principle that makes it the same somehow~~~ and that is TO GIVE THANKS! We Filipinos loooooove celebrations a lot, maybe because we have too many to be thankful for. Even if the milestone is but of little importance, to us it is stepping stone to something greater. We gives thanks to the little things and more more gratefullness to bigger accomplishments or blessings. We believe that life is not ours alone, so it is best and fit to celebrate it with others as a form of sharing our happiness and blessings. Little things can be celebrated in simple ways and it doesn't need to be grand each time. What matters is how one express gratitude or just be thankful per se. I think also, it is a silent call for families to come together and just bond. We seemed to be pre-occupied with our separate lives and so consumed probably with work too. So, celebrations are mini-reunions and getting the bond back. We just eat and eat and ask everyone how they have been or whatever is new or something.
Celebrations are being thankful for all things, little o big doesn't really matter, as long as you are simply thankful. Just like when my sons had their monthly birthdays before they reached a year old, I had made them simple monthly small (bento) birthday cakes/cupcakes. And we did have lechon later during their 1st birthdays!!! Lechons is grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhh.
Sometimes, we just eat out as a one big family. And mind you, it is a loooooong table for us! No lechons hahaha..
Or even simple celebrations at home.
To end, we just simply say THANK YOU.
PS
All pictures are mine except for the turkey and roasted pig which were sourced properly
