# Any non-US folks celebrating Thanksgiving today? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 25, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920 "2010-11-25T20:49:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Scougs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scougs/32/3158_2.png) [@Scougs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scougs)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/21 "2010-11-26T18:32:41Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > And by non-US I mean people who are neither from the US nor living in the US. And it doesn’t count if you lived here for awhile and carried the tradition with you. > > Being the cultural imperialists that we are, we like to think our traditions are universal, so I’m just wondering if there is anything to this at all. > > So let us know what you think. Wouldn’t you just love to eat a nice turkey dinner today with cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, stuffing and the rest? We’ve already got every second advert on TV telling us how utterly inadequate we’ll be if we don’t have the perfect family Christmas dinner next month (and spend roughly the national debt of a small third world country to do so). I really can’t imagine doing it all twice in such a short space of time. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/22 "2010-11-26T20:02:10Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Of course we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving. :rolleyes: Ungrateful bastards! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/23 "2010-11-26T20:30:41Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > And by non-US I mean people who are neither from the US nor living in the US. And it doesn’t count if you lived here for awhile and carried the tradition with you. > > Being the cultural imperialists that we are, we like to think our traditions are universal, so I’m just wondering if there is anything to this at all. No. Why would we? > [@](#): > > So let us know what you think. Wouldn’t you just love to eat a nice turkey dinner today with cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, stuffing and the rest? I can do that any time I want. Tends to be Xmas dinner round here. And Xmas is far too enormous an event to want to have a similar event a few weeks earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/24 "2010-11-26T20:34:18Z")
Here’s Wikipedia’s summary of observance of Thangsginv round the world. It’s a very short list! Six countries, including the US. > [@](#): > > United States Main article: Thanksgiving (United States) Thanksgiving or Thanksgiving Day, currently celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, has been an annual tradition in the United States since 1863. Historically, Thanksgiving began as a tradition of celebrating the harvest of the year.[1] > > Canada Main article: Thanksgiving (Canada) Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day (Canadian French: Jour de l’Action de grâce), occurring on the second Monday in October, is an annual Canadian holiday to give thanks at the close of the harvest season. Although the original act of Parliament references God and the holiday is celebrated in churches, the holiday is also celebrated in a secular manner. > > The Netherlands Many of the Pilgrims who would end up at the Plymouth Plantation had resided in the city of Leiden from 1609–1620, many of whom had recorded their birth, marriages and deaths at the Pieterskerkchurch.[9] To commemorate this, a non-denominational Thanksgiving Day service is held each year on the morning of the American Thanksgiving Day in the Pieterskerk, a Gothic church in Leiden, to commemorate the hospitality the Pilgrims received in Leiden on their way to the New World.[10] > > Grenada In the West Indian island of Grenada, there is a national holiday known as Thanksgiving Day which is celebrated on October 25. Even though it bears the same name, and is celebrated at roughly the same time as the American and Canadian versions of Thanksgiving, this holiday is unrelated to either of those celebrations. Instead the holiday marks the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the island in 1983, in response to the deposition and execution of Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.[11] > > Liberia In the West African country of Liberia, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the first Thursday of November. > > Norfolk Island In the Australian external territory of Norfolk Island, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the last Wednesday of November, similar to the pre-World War Two American observance on the last Thursday of the month. This means the Norfolk Island observance is the day before or six days after the United States’ observance. The holiday was brought to the island by visiting American whaling ships. [12] ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/25 "2010-11-26T22:00:19Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > > [@Alessan](#): > > > > I’m in favor of adapting holidays purely for their food. We also celebrate St. Patrick’s Day… > > Food? Corned beef and cabbage, potatoes in any form, Irish soda bread, and lots of alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/26 "2010-11-26T22:10:21Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think this is my first thread to have been moved to that forum. Is there a support group to help with the blow to one’s self-esteem? 🙂 I moved three or four threads from Cafe Society to MPSIMS today – you should have no problem finding fellow sufferers. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/27 "2010-11-27T07:27:17Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > Food? My wife makes a mean Guiness pie. Remember, to us, pies with meat in them are an exotic foreign food. ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/28 "2010-11-27T11:16:12Z")
Despite every single US TV show referencing it at least fifty times, I still don’t really know nor care what it’s all about. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/29 "2010-11-27T17:25:18Z")
I have several Norskie friends who joke that we _should_ celebrate it here, because any holiday that revolves around food and drink and has no other expectations sounds just fine to them, especially in the long slog between summer vacation and Christmas. But in that case, they should probably consider the Canadian Thanksgiving before the American version - it’s closer to the harvest (nothing has been growing for a month at least up here at the sixtieth parallel) and comes without the Pilgrims-and-Indians baggage. Our local supermarket has put turkeys on sale during US Thanksgiving week for three years running now. There must be more American expats around than I thought… ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/30 "2010-11-27T17:58:06Z")
> [@flodnak](#): > > I have several Norskie friends who joke that we _should_ celebrate it here, because any holiday that revolves around food and drink and has no other expectations sounds just fine to them, especially in the long slog between summer vacation and Christmas. But in that case, they should probably consider the Canadian Thanksgiving before the American version - it’s closer to the harvest (nothing has been growing for a month at least up here at the sixtieth parallel) and comes without the Pilgrims-and-Indians baggage. > > Our local supermarket has put turkeys on sale during US Thanksgiving week for three years running now. There must be more American expats around than I thought… That is what my viking Eve Online corpmates say, anything involving food seems to interest them 😃 We actually seem to spend an amazing amount of time chatting about food, and exchanging recipes. He hooked me up with some seriously nice looking pig based recipes, and I was telling them about what we were going to cook for thanksgiving and so I am going to make at least a couple items for them next summer when we get together for the Northern Coalition Blob party in Germany =) Turkey, dressing, dirty rice … I can’t wait! ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/31 "2010-11-29T03:51:01Z")
I can’t help but feel this thread is a bit like a New Zealander asking if Waitangi Day is celebrated by non-Kiwis anywhere… of course it isn’t, because the historical event/context being celebrated didn’t play out in the same way elsewhere for whatever reason. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/32 "2010-11-29T08:35:57Z")
_off to search for Waitangi Day_ The closest I come to celebrating T-Day is using all those T-Day threads as an excuse to count my blessings. Even if I was interested in having a T-Day meal (which I’m definitely not), a lot of the ingredients are pretty much unfindable here; like that T-Day at the home of my Italo-Spanish-Venezuelan-American cousins, the menu would end up being atypical. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/33 "2010-11-29T17:23:24Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I can’t help but feel this thread is a bit like a New Zealander asking if Waitangi Day is celebrated by non-Kiwis anywhere… of course it isn’t, because the historical event/context being celebrated didn’t play out in the same way elsewhere for whatever reason. So… what do you guys eat on Waitangi Day? ---
**Author:** ![Gleena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b3f665/32.png) [@Gleena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gleena)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/34 "2010-11-30T09:12:35Z")
> [@Cunctator](#): > > It’s celebrated in [Norfolk Island](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Island) as a result of historical links with American whalers. They have it on the last Wednesday in November (so two days ago now): [link](http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/agd.nsf/Page/TerritoriesofAustralia_NorfolkIsland_NorfolkIslandInformationandServices#Public) (scroll to the bottom for the part on public holidays). > > As for the rest of Australia, its celebration is restricted to American ex-pats. Not this one. It just makes me sad and homesick and want my mom. My friends were humouring me, and my husband doesn’t get the significance. Plus, turkey here is like a chicken with pretensions. MAN are they small. Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![ColdPhoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@ColdPhoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdPhoenix)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/35 "2010-11-30T10:12:01Z")
The vast majority of people in Europe probably don’t even know it’s thanksgiving day. The only people who do will have friends from the usa or have seen it mentioned by an american on the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/36 "2010-11-30T10:22:56Z")
You’re underestimating the power of American movies and TV shows. While they’re one season off, some TV stations have thoughtful people who set up series so that the Halloween special actually falls on Halloween and the show with turkey falls on Thanksgiving. Apparently those people are, like me, old enough to remember watching Christmas shows in April, just as the thermometer started climbing past 30ºC, and finding the mismatch enormously confusing. Just yesterday the conversation around lunchtime at work was on Black Friday, which one of my coworkers discovered this year, two others knew about previously, and I explained that it wasn’t “the first day of the sales season” as they thought, more like “a one-day sales season” so it makes the old January 2nd rush look polite (sales season is more spread out nowadays, with different sectors starting it on different days). ---
**Author:** ![ColdPhoenix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@ColdPhoenix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ColdPhoenix)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/37 "2010-11-30T10:48:40Z")
Perhaps I don’t watch enough american tv. I certainly don’t remember ever hearing anyone over here mentioning it being thanksgiving but I guess they could be aware of when it is. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/38 "2010-11-30T12:27:52Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So… what do you guys eat on Waitangi Day? Depending how much advantage of the day off you feel like having, either “A BBQ or maybe a Hangi, otherwise nothing special”. The point I was making is that it’s a specific, localised event and it’s highly unlikely anyone else would be celebrating it (signing of the Treaty that allowed for European colonisation of New Zealand) since it’s got nothing to do with them at all, basically. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/39 "2010-11-30T15:08:05Z")
We always celebrate two Thanksgivings. In part because we love turkey and having friends over, but mostly because we figure we have so much to be thankful for. Also I am slowly indoctrinating others to my way of thinking. Plus, while the traditional Thanksgiving is all about family and carries a little pressure, to appear, for the food to be perfect, and, of course, the potential for family drama, the second Thanksgiving is more casual, more the clan you made than the clan you were given. You can freely alter the menu to try new things without upsetting anyone. It’s just a more relaxed and fun version, really. I tell all the women in my life that if you were born a female in the first world, that’s worthy of a day of celebration, in itself. Although I admit to changing it up, year to year, about why we should all be twice as thankful. I never seem to be short of reasons! ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920/40 "2010-11-30T19:08:19Z")
Thanksgiving in the US sense doesn’t exist here, and outside US expats, or other people associated with US culture, I’ve never heard about it. Yes, US TV series show it, but my own guess is that it’s far too much stress to have the whole family over and cook a big dinner, esp. when all this is done again on Christmas. There’s also no day off. Also, the turkey is not a big thing here. Halloween has become popular partly because pumpkins also grow here, partly because for teenagers it’s an excuse to party - that’s what started it, they saw the Halloween parties on US TV series and copied that. Pumpkin carving and pumpkin recipes appeal to the younger kids and the craft people have an opportunity to occupy them. The feast of giving thanks for the harvest is on the first Sunday of October. It’s celebrated in Church, where a sampling of the harvest is brought to the altar. In the countryside and villages, there’s a procession before hand, often with a crown of four types of grain and a harvest queen (a young teenage girl). Then you thank God that the harvest was good, feel thankful that you are well off. This year, we had a pumpkin soup lunch afterwards in my church for a good cause, but that’s not the rule. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-non-us-folks-celebrating-thanksgiving-today/561920.md?page=3)