Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is basically an American holiday is one of the “big six” major holidays of the year: New Year’s Day, (January 1st); Memorial Day, (the last Monday in May); Independence Day, (July 4th); Labor Day, (not Labour Day – it is, after all, an American holiday – the first Monday in September); Thanksgiving, (the fourth Thursday in November) and Christmas, (December 25th).
Families normally gather for the holiday, (making this one of the busiest times of the year for travel), enjoy a large meal and watch a game of American Football.
Although it falls on a Thursday, festivities tend to stretch over the weekend to make a four day holiday. Although it’s not a holiday, many employers give their staff the next day, (known alternatively as Black Friday or Green Friday), off and it traditionally marks the beginning of the Christmas Shopping Season. It is said to be one of the, (if not the), busiest shopping day of the year.
The holiday is marked by Americans all over the world, even here in Kyrgyzstan – even if the celebration doesn’t really extend beyond the American community whether it be the ex-pat community or the military bases that the US government operate overseas.
There are, however, a number of surprising facts about Thanksgiving – well, they surprised me!
First was the fact that Thanksgiving is also celebrated in Canada – so ingrained is the image of it as a purely American, (i.e. US), holiday. In Canada, however, it is celebrated on the second Monday in October – the same day as Columbus Day in the States.
Another thing that surprised me was that there are competing theories about how the festival originated.
The event that Americans commonly call the “First Thanksgiving” was supposedly celebrated by Pilgrim Fathers, (colonists who sailed in the Mayflower and landed at Plymouth in Massachusetts), after their first harvest in 1621, to give thanks to God for guiding them safely to the New World.
According to the various accounts left to us by the colonists, the first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days, providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Native Americans who had befriended and helped them. The feast consisted of fish (cod, eels, and bass) and shellfish (clams, lobster, and mussels), wild fowl (ducks, geese, swans, and turkey), venison, berries (I presume that includes the traditional cranberry) and fruit, vegetables (peas, pumpkin, beetroot and possibly, wild or cultivated onion), harvest grains (barley and wheat), and the “Three Sisters”: beans, dried Indian maize or corn, and squash.
Although we have accounts of this event, there are however, competing claims as to the origins of the holiday. It has been argued, for example, that the earliest attested “Thanksgiving” celebration in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish as early as in 1565 in what is now Florida, and “Thanksgiving” services appear to have been routine in what was to become Virginia as early as 1607.
As far as the Canadians are concerned, the holiday seems to commemorate an event which occurred in 1578. The explorer Martin Frobisher had been trying to find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean and on his third voyage to this region he held a formal ceremony to give thanks for surviving the long journey from England through the perils of storms and icebergs in Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island. Later it was to become a more traditional Harvest Festival.
Finally, there is the date, (the fourth Thursday in November), which is a relatively new innovation, remembering that the holiday is supposed to commemorate the first harvest gathered by the founding fathers back in the seventeenth century. This date was fixed only in 1941 – and that was a controversial decision.
In the early years, the festival had no fixed date and was tied to the gathering in of the harvest. George Washington issued a proclamation declaring the holiday in 1789 but, basically, each State declared their own holiday. Until 1863, that is, when President Lincoln issued another Proclamation naming the last Thursday of November as a national Thanksgiving holiday in order to try and bring a sense of unity to both Northern and Southern states which were at that time engulfed in a civil war.
That was the situation that prevailed until 1939. That year there were five Thursday’s in November and President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued yeat another Proclamation declaring the fourth Thursday as the holiday. His reasoning was purely economical – n earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas helping to bring the country out of depression. The Republicans were outraged with his break from tradition and termed his innovation “Fransgiving”. For two years there were two separate Thanksgiving holidays celebrated in different states – the Republican Thanksgiving and the Democratic Thanksgiving. The impasse was broken by a Federal law being introduced in Congress and negotiated between the two sides resulting in the current date.
It has been suggested that one reason for the earlier date in Canada is that, being farther North, the seasons change and the Harvest gathered in earlier than in the States. At first there was no fixed date for the holiday, but by the end of the nineteenth century it seems to have been commemorated each year on November 6th. Following the First World War, however, it was moved to prevent a clash with Armistice Day which was commemorated on November 11th. The Second Monday in September was chosen deliberately to coincide with Columbus Day and create a Continental Holiday.
As I said, the holiday is marked by Americans all around the world – even here in Kyrgyzstan. The people of Kyrgyzstan like a celebration as much as anyone and although they haven’t (yet) adopted this as one of their eclectic set of national holidays and don’t really mark it in any special way, they will happily “congratulate” their American friends on the holiday, wishing them a Happy Holiday.
Although not a traditional meat here, Turkey (indook) is available and some restaurants offer special menus.
The US embassy will be closed and staff and students at the American University of Central are celebrating early. Well, today is a holiday, (No classes), but yesterday they were planning some events:
WHAT IS Thanksgiving Day? (November 23)
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday during which students post their “THANKS” for faculty, parents, friends, those they love, and whatever else they are grateful for on the walls to make a remembrance of their love and appreciation. Then, at the end of the day, all students, faculty, and staff gather together at their departments and eat turkeys, which are served by the university, and other foods they have prepared
Kirsten, an American blogger who is here in Bishkek, wrote an account of her trials and tribulations preparing Thanksgiving dinner last year, (2010), complete with photos. I am not sure why she couldn’t find pumpkins but fortunately she found a squash to subsititute.
Bishkek