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Cameron
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: January 2008
Messages: 70
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I wanted to wish everyone who observes it, a "Happy Thanksgiving Day". I hope you have a day of food and fellowship with your friends and family.
What about our friends across the sea? Does England and Europe have something similar to our Thanksgiving Day? What about Australia? Is it strictly an American holiday or do other countries celebrate too?
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Hi, To be honest no, we don't have a 'Thanksgiving Day' in the UK. We make rather more of Christmas though than many do in the U.S. The trouble you would go to over your Thanksgiving turkey I shall be doing for my Christmad dinner.
Paul J.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I thought we celebrated it on July 4th?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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We don't have a formal public holiday of thanksgiving here in the UK.
Many rural areas still have a (usually Church-led) Harvest Festival, though this isn't as common as it used to be. Small farmers up until the 1930s often still had a "Harvest Home" supper when all the crops were in, for all those who have worked for them during the year. Sadly, the mechanisation of agriculture has almost done away with this tradition, though I can remember traces of it remaining in my youth in rural Oxfordshire in the 1960s.
But we don't have a common date for such celebrations as do still exist. Probably, having Mischief Night (Hallloween) and Bonfire Night (5th November) coming together at the start of November, and with school half-terms etc usually based on these, we feel we have enough 'family time' around now (even though neither of these is a public holiday).
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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LOL!
"Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio, o materna mia terra..."
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Cameron wrote:
> ...
> What about our friends across the sea? Does England and Europe have something similar to our Thanksgiving Day? What about Australia? Is it strictly an American holiday or do other countries celebrate too?
The Pilgrims spent 12 years (1609-1620) in Leiden (the Netherlands), before proceeding to America, and saw the thanksgiving festival that was celebrated there on October 3, to commemorate the lifting of the Siege of Leiden in 1574. According to Wikipedia:
October 3 is celebrated every year in Leiden. It is a huge party, with an enormous funfair and a dozen open air discos in the night. The municipality gives free herring and white bread to the citizens of Leiden.
More recently, there has been a religious service in Leiden on the day of American Thanksgiving. No turkey after the service, only coffee and cookies. 
"Tu non altro che il canto avrai del figlio, o materna mia terra..."
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