I don't see many people complaining about the Lunar Festival, which is the Chinese New Year.

Or Brewfest, which is Oktoberfest. Or Day of the Dead, which is a Mexican holiday.

While you're completely entitled to your opinion, don't sit the holiday out just because it's based on a holiday in the US.

Like I said in my comment below, there's still a neat buff you can get from eating the food! And, in a way, that's getting into the spirit of things! If there's someone else at the table and they start tossing food at you, that's getting into the spirit, too! I should probably point out here that starting a food fight is NOT an actual tradition and would make your host rather PO'd-- especially if they did all/most of the cooking. lol

If you don't "get it" or understand what the holiday's about, it might be a good excuse to do a little research and learn something new! For example, there are probably plenty of people playing WoW who aren't Asian or even know what a lunar calendar is-- yet they still happily participate in WoW's Lunar Festival every January/February. I've had a lot of fun telling my guildmates about Lunar New Year when they're curious about the Earth-based version of the holiday, and sharing the stories my parents passed onto me about celebrating Lunar New Year in Hong Kong when they were kids. And, in turn, my guildmates love learning about this stuff!

All I'm really saying is, don't let a little detail get in the way of having fun or make you feel left out. There are lots of ways to get involved, even if you don't know why on Earth you're doing it. This is Azeroth! At the heart of this holiday, it's a message of coming together over a meal, sharing with one another, and celebrating... And gorging on good food :) Who doesn't like gorging on good food, right?

Why can't Pilgrim's Bounty just be Pilgrim's Bounty? Just because you see something in-game that seems similar to something you know from real-life doesn't make them the same.

It is not a celebration for just the US. The first one that occurred was not held by any US citizens. It became a American Holiday during the Lincoln Administration.

It's just about being thankful for what you have. If you have to struggle with that, I might point out being thankful in the face of hard times is the best way to get a new lease on life. Lord knows losing a child last year has made me thankful for a can of soup and stale crackers at times.

There is WAY too much of this Us and Them nonsense.

@Thawed: I'm so sorry. I am pinging you on the mental chat channel with /hugs.

At no point did I suggest it was a 'them and us', mearly that this is a very specific culture based theme that I find hard to identify with. Oktoberfest is celabrated is many contries after its beginnings in Germany, most countries across Europe and Cities in America have beer halls for this. Same with Chinese new year, with the expantion and mass migration of the Chinese people across the centuries have led most cultures to accept and acknowledge this period, hell, most of Europe used a Lunar calendar before the gregorian one we use today. And thawedtheorc, of course it wasn't an American citzen that started it, as pilgrims, they were English, 'America' didn't exist at the time.

So again, I will not be taking part in this for my first reasons; I don't identify with it, I don't care about it and i'd like to add a 3rd - Skyrim.

Where I live, we do celebrate both Oktoberfest and the Day of the Dead (though not exactly the same way Mexicans do it). We don't celebrate Thanksgiving, though, or even Halloween.

I wouldn't skip the in-game festival just due to that, though. Thanksgiving might mean nothing to me - I've spent most of my life without knowing it even existed - but in-game festivals are (or should be) nice for their own sake.

(I would prefer if they were more like LotRO's festivals in having a large amount of activities, but making it possible to complete all "achievements" by just doing each activity once; not being forced to log every day and grind the festival makes me able to actually enjoy it for it's sake, instead of just seeing them as grinds for cool loot and achievements.)

You don't have to celebrate it because it's an American holiday. You could just celebrate the part of giving thanks, for whatever you are. Some people in America celebrate Cinco De Mayo simply because it's a reason to party and get drunk.

You are saying "This is an American holiday, and I will have nothing to do with it.", try approaching it from another side. "This is a holiday in-game which gives me buffs, a few achievements, and an easy way to level cooking.", instead of the way you are approaching it now, which is a "it's from another country, so screw it", is a poor way to go about it.

Saying "I'm not interested" would have gotten you better responses than "It's American. I'm not. Screw it."

Well said, Drak but permit me to give my retribution-style reply:

Screw off, you dirty foreigner. We don't want you in our holiday, anyway.

Nice, racism, very polite of you. I gave my reasons which were I do not identifly with a culturally specific event as I'm not from that culture and I get called a dirty forginer. Charmed I'm sure.