Last Updated on November 28, 2025 by stlplace
I have many thanksgiving holidays in the USA. Let me count from 1997 to 2025, with the exception of 2019 I spent all the Thanksgiving holidays here in those years.
In 2019 I took a trip to China to see my parents, and my big brother and his family back home: United Airlines STL/PVG roundtrip via ORD, leave on Wed, Nov 27, 2019 and return on Sat, Dec 07, 2019. Back then there were 2 nonstops flights between ORD and PVG daily, those flights were suspended since 2020 pandemic, and hasn’t resumed so far. 2020 pandemic quickly happened (January 2020) and impacted travel, shortly after I returned to the US.
I spent total 28 Thanksgiving holidays here – calculation goes like this:
2025 – 1997 = 28; 28 + 1 (this will make sure we include 1997) – 1 (2019) = 28
Early years 1997 to 1999
In the early years, when I was a graduate student in Rolla (Missouri S&T, 1997 to 1999/2000), I had a host family, the Stoltz family in Rolla, and they had a tradition going to Jefferson City, because their friend and relative Mel Carnahan was the governor of Missouri. And they brought us along 🙂 It was quite eye opening for me, as I was new to the states. I went to there twice, at least, with the Stoltz family. Yes we went to the Governor’s Mansion. A few summers ago, we went to the Jefferson city for a tour, and I can barely remember some of the places there, including the Governor’s Mansion as well as the state capitol.
After Rolla
Black Friday was a thing then, I also attended quite a few friends gathering here in STL, or friendsGiving (Wikipedia) in today’s term.
Re: black Friday, I saw people (friends) bought the newspaper, and looked at the deals in the inlets (ads), some will literrally camped outside the Best Buy or Walmart stores overnight. And in extreme cases, people stamped into each other when the store door opened, and there were casualties. I know it’s crazy but I am trying to just tell it like a journalist would do.
Another year (2005) I actually spent Thanksgiving on the road, I took a flight from STL to the St. Francisco bay area, to spend holiday with my brother and his family. There were only 3 passengers on the plane that has capacity of more than 100. It was probably a McDonell Douglas MD-95 plane rebranded as a Boeing 717 later on. And the airplane was quite cold – both because of lack of passengers inside, as well as the cabin temperature was not set high.
Work
One year I actually worked on Thanksgiving day, I believe it was 2006, when I was single. I don’t have any complaints, because I didn’t have anything better to do then. But let me emphasize, try to do the work only if absolutely necessary, or if you are bored if like I was in Thanksgiving 2006.
Because one year (2017 or 2018 when I was working for MC) I fought with my wife, again you may realized it’s mostly my fault, and for trivial stuff. But one factor I was upset was because I worked for 2 out of 4 days break in that thanksgiving holiday (it was expected at my job then at MC, refer to “非养老公司” section).
Recent years
Turkey trot: I run quite a few Turkey Trot at Olivette, since year 2018 (need to look up my races history and my blog post).
Kids will make dinner today
Just like last year. This year our 11 year old our younger daughter is taking the charge, I believe last year it was our old daughter who was leading. They both cooked American traditional style Thanksgiving dinner 🙂