[ad_1]
NANTUCKET, Massachusetts >> President Joe Biden today wished Americans a happy Thanksgiving, the second celebrated in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, and welcomed the resumption of holiday traditions by millions of US families, including himself own .
“While we thank you for what we have, we also keep the lost and those who have lost so much in our hearts,” said the president in a video made at the White House ahead of her trip with First Lady Jill Biden was taken to Nantucket, Massachusetts, for vacation.
On the island, the Bidens visited the coast guard in Brant Point to meet with staff and virtually with US soldiers from all over the world. “I’m not kidding when I say that I am grateful for these guys,” the President said when asked what he was grateful for, referring to the Coast Guard members who were on the premises directly in front of him when he left stood.
Reporters were kept out of the room for Biden’s virtual statements, apparently due to the limited space in the building. Well-wishers waved and cheered as Biden’s motorcade navigated the island’s narrow cobbled and cobbled streets to and from the Coast Guard compound.
Biden, whose late son Beau was a major in the Delaware Army National Guard, said he saw U.S. soldiers deployed around the world, from the South China Sea to Iraq and Afghanistan to South America. He said that when foreigners wonder what America is, “don’t see us here,” what civilians mean. “You see them,” he said of members of the Coast Guard and other branches of the US military. “That makes me proud.”
From Nantucket, the Bidens also called the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and joked briefly with NBC broadcaster Al Roker. Closed a year ago, spectators again lined the track in Manhattan when around 8,000 participants joined the parade. Parade staff and volunteers had to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and wear masks.
The first extended family traditionally went for their Thanksgiving menu: roast turkey, a grandmother’s recipe filling, and other ingredients. The dessert consisted of three types of cake and, unsurprisingly, chocolate ice cream for those who followed Biden in and out of the ice cream parlor on the campaign trail.
Biden and his wife began spending Thanksgiving in Nantucket before getting married in 1977, trying to find a way out to decide who to spend it with. They did not visit in 2015 after Beau’s death from brain cancer at the age of 46 earlier this year or in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic brought the kibosh to large family gatherings.
Instead, Biden dined at home in Delaware last year with just his wife, daughter Ashley, and her husband.
But this year the president has joined the millions of Americans who celebrate the holiday with large groups of loved ones. Biden’s entire family flew up with him on Air Force One Tuesday night to resume the Thanksgiving tradition: his wife; Son Hunter and his wife Melissa and their young son Beau; Daughter Ashley; and grandchildren Naomi, Finnegan, Maisy, Natalie and the young Hunter as well as Naomi’s fiancé Peter Neal.
The president has credited the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines for helping ease returns from family reunions this holiday season, despite a resurgent virus in the US spurring a surge in new infections. The President and First Lady both received their full vaccine dose and a booster.
Naomi Biden and her fiance were riding bicycles on a local trail just before their grandfather’s SUV left the isolated house where the family lives. The sprawling site is owned by David Rubenstein, a billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of the private equity firm Carlyle Group.
Biden’s visit, his first as president, is very different from his previous vacation here when he was a US Senator and later Vice President. Then you might have seen him walking around downtown.
Biden lost much of his freedom to move around on his own when he became president and is now traveling with a large group of security personnel, the White House and other officials and journalists. His every move in public is closely monitored by US intelligence and other law enforcement agencies.
Jill Biden was overheard telling Coast Guard members that she would see her again Friday night at Nantucket’s annual Christmas tree lights, another Biden tradition.
“We all go together,” she said of her family. At the tree lighting ceremony in 2001, Beau Biden proposed to his wife Hallie. The following year they were married on the island.
Biden is expected to return to the White House on Sunday.
[ad_2]
Comments are closed.