Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the United States.
Most of us will enjoy roast turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn and squash.
Typically, there is some form of a pumpkin pie, too.
All of this in remembrance of the three-day feast enjoyed by the Pilgrims and their Wampanoag allies in 1621.
Most of what we think of as the traditional foods of Thanksgiving were new and exotic dishes to the European Pilgrims.
For more than two centuries in early America, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states.
It wasn’t until 1863, during the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
The jury is still out for some scholars on whether the feast at Plymouth really constituted the first Thanksgiving in the United States.
Historians have recorded other ceremonies of thanks among European settlers in North America that predate the Pilgrims’ celebration.
While we Americans view Thanksgiving as central to our own history, we’re far from the only culture to have a holiday dedicated to gratitude and the harvest.
Canada has celebrated Thanksgiving Day since 1578, when English explorer Martin Frobisher arrived safely in present-day Nunavut. Canadians celebrate Frobisher’s arrival — as well as the end of the harvest — on the second Monday of October. Their feast is like ours— turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pie.
The Chinese celebrate the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, which usually corresponds to September or October in the Western calendar.
The traditional Chinese fare includes the mooncake, a flaky pastry with a sweet or savory filling.
The Germans celebrate Erntedankfest on the first Sunday of October. The festival gives thanks for a good year; people wear crowns of woven grain stalks, flowers and fruit. They feast on fattened poultry — usually chickens or geese.
As an annual celebration of the harvest and bounty, Thanksgiving falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures, continents and millennia. Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all feasted and paid tribute to their gods after the fall harvest. Thanksgiving also bears a resemblance to the ancient Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. For about the past century of American consumerism, Thanksgiving signified the official kick-off to the holiday season.
The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade celebrates its 100th birthday this year. Born out of the roaring ‘20s, its inception serves as a key turning point in the nation’s attitude about Christmas shopping.
Expansions in media, advertising and transportation— coupled with greater access to capital— shopping habits drastically changed seemingly overnight.
And then there is “Black Friday.”
The term itself was coined by the Philadelphia Police Department during the 1950’s and it was not a term of endearment. It was called “Black Friday” because of all the traffic accidents, scuffles and even violence that regularly occurred on the day in and around the local shopping malls and other stores. In fact, there was a push by retailers to rename the defacto holiday and get rid of the negative connotations of the Black Friday monicker. Instead, retailers wanted to call it “Big Friday”— which never quite caught on. It didn’t matter though. Shoppers soon forgot the unsavory origins of the term considering saving $150 on a 25” RCA TV (1979) or saving more than $400 on a Commodore 64 Home Computer (1983).
Nowadays, Christmas is ushered in at Halloween and, as I’ve written here recently— that is okay.
Folks these days need the holiday season, but it does behoove us to slow down and enjoy Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving has all the richness of Christmas and none of the expectations.
There is no expectation of gift giving and Santa Claus and the whirlwind of holiday parties that can leave you dizzy.
Thanksgiving is about being together and gratitude.
Author Cynthia Rylant said it best— “In November, people are good to each other. They carry pies to each other’s homes and talk by crackling woodstoves, sipping mellow cider. They travel very far on a special November day just to share a meal with one another and to give thanks for their many blessings.”
So, in that spirit, I implore you to enjoy the day. Enjoy one another.
Happy Thanksgiving from our house to yours.
Source: Freepik.com