What Can You Do?

• Beyond Plastic: https://www.beyondplastics.org/thanksgiving

• Olivia for the Ocean: https://oliviafortheocean.com/a-simple-guide-to-a-plastic-free-thanksgiving/

• Earth 911: https://earth911.com/living-well-being/goodbye-plastic-thanksgiving-tips/

 There is a good chance you will be doing some shopping for the holidays coming in December.  Looking ahead check out the fabulous ideas in this website: https://www.plasticpollutioncoalition.org/2023ppcgiftguide

We McSisters have typically celebrated Thanksgiving with our loved ones enjoying a big turkey dinner complete with stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggie dishes cranberry sauce, and, of course, pumpkin pie.   Many Thanksgiving days include watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, football, walks with family and friends, games, and a very full belly at the end of the day.  We are very thankful for our friends, family, and our communities.

We did a little research and learned that Thanksgiving has a long and interesting history. It has been marked by religious services giving thanks to God and celebrating bountiful harvests. It was first recorded as a religious Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth somewhere around the year 1623.  On October 3, 1863, during the Civil War, President Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26. 

It turns out that Thanksgiving is not just an American holiday.  Some European countries celebrate Thanksgiving as well as places around the world from Canada to Japan and even Liberia.

However, for many Native Americans, Thanksgiving Is also a National Day of Mourning.  It commemorates the arrival of settlers in North America and centuries of oppression and genocide.

However, you honor the Thanksgiving holiday, we McSisters challenge you to celebrate plastic free.  You may be doing lots of shopping and cooking.  We have provided many tips in previous blogs on how to shop plastic free and how to store food.  In doing our research about Thanksgiving in particular, we discovered that some of our favorite plastic free advocates have created fabulous guides so in our ‘What can you do?’ section, we refer you to these guides.

Enjoy your holiday!