A few days ago, one of the CNN news people made the statement that Thanksgiving isn’t technically a real holiday. This was followed by a change of subject. So could anyone explain to me what he could have meant? Could it be that it doesn’t fall on the same date every year?
It didn’t come from God? It’s relatively recent? Not enough consumerism based around it (ignore black friday to accept this argument please)? No clue honestly.
Not only is Thanksgiving a real holiday, it’s the best one ever invented. You stuff yourself silly and don’t have to buy anyone a present. What’s not to love?
Not a real holiday, my ass. grumble, grumble
It’s a great holiday! As a nonChristian in the US, I love having a major holiday we all share in common and have similar traditions for.
Not a real holiday, humph.
Until very recently, as many or more people got Thanksgiving off than Christmas. On the supply side, it generates enormous sales in food and travel.
No idea unless he meant it was secular rather than religious in nature. Which is still a stupid distinction – no one says that Memorial Day or Independence Day isn’t a “real” holiday.
As Siam Sam said, it’s a wonderful holiday. No real consumerism around the day itself except for the feast and the concept of the day is wonderfully simple: make a bunch of food to celebrate the good things from the past year and enjoy your friends and family.
Dunno what CNN was thinking; it’s a legal holiday in the United States as much as any other, and this is its sesquicentennial. I make a point to read Lincoln’s declaration of the holiday every Thanksgiving Day.
It’s by far my favorite holiday. First, there’s much good food, much of which is pie. While acknowledging the things for which we are thankful, there’s also an opportunity to commune with family, friends, and even strangers. There’s not a ton of buildup (not like Christmas, which has encroached on Thanksgiving for decades), and it’s over in one day – no obligation to spend an inordinate time with family, friends, and even strangers once they’ve gotten on your very last nerve.
It’s not a ‘holy day’. Which is probably what was meant.
I can only assume he meant it’s not a religious holiday. Which is pretty dumb.
It’s the only holiday that has any real meaning to me. I try to be thankful all the time. But Thanksgiving occurs doing that time of the year when it makes sense to take stock of everything in your life. You reflect on the positives of the year and then you use the remaining month to set goals for the upcoming one. When I’m with my sister and it’s just the two of us eating her delicious turkey and my delicious sweet potatoes while we watch “The Wiz” for the billionth time, all the bad things that I might be tempted to think about don’t exist. I feel like the luckiest person in the world. And I have that memory to hold on to during the rest of the year.
There is no pretense with Thanksgiving the way there is for Christmas, IMHO. I’ve never really understood the big deal about the “Christmas spirit” because we give gifts throughout the year. For birthdays, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, baby and wedding showers, housewarmings, and “just because” occasions. But there is no other day of the year that we intentionally set aside to focus on our good fortune.
Without context this seems the most likely guess. But it’s still a distinction without any relevance. Most of the “major” holidays aren’t religious: New Years Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day are all traditionally days off and none are religious.
But for all I know they were just talking about the religious “War on Christmas” or some nonsense that would make the distinction make sense in context.
I love Thanksgiving. A day to feast and have fun and be Thankful and then another day off on top of that to rest. That said, Thanksgiving doesn’t really have the deep roots it seems to have. It wasn’t formally made a Federal Holiday until the mid 20th century (before then it was more a regional or state thing) and even in its infancy it was moved to make more time to Christmas Shopping. But even given all of that it is still a Real Holiday.
CNN is a pale shadow of what it once was.
If they said this, it was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Unfortunately, it amounts to a piece of straw in the barn full of ‘stupid’ straw they’ve been piling up lately.
Since ancient times, peoples have had ‘harvest festivals’.
You see, an agrarian based economy kind of has winter ‘off’. You harvest everything and you have a big feast because everything else is going to be pickled, salted, or otherwise preserved because you’re not going to have fresh food till some time in late spring.
In modern society, it’s a bit tricker. There is no TDF report harvest. Our jobs are 24/7/365 days a year. It sucks. The way college kids celebrate spring break is the way the holiday season used to be, but for everyone! It’s a real holiday. It’s probably the oldest one we celebrate. (unless you consider Easter to be a celebration of Spring, which it kind of is)
Maybe because it doesn’t commemorate an actual event that a date can be assigned to?
We’re told that Native Americans shared their food with early settlers, kept them from starving, but that was probably an ongoing thing (for awhile anyway).
So in that sense it’s kinda like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and Memorial Day – a day set aside to show appreciation and remembrance.
Maybe by etymology, which is surely holy day. And idiotic distinction. Language changes. In England, vacation is called holidays.
Thanksgiving may not be a holy day like Easter or Christmas, but I’d argue that it has more religious trappings than Memorial Day or Labor Day. The whole purpose of the day is to give thanks, and for most people the object of the thanks is some kind of God or higher power. (Not for everyone of course; one can certainly just foster a general sense of gratitude toward no entity in particular, I imagine). Thanksgiving is a truly ecumenical holiday.
I think the guy on CNN was talking out his ass.
That’s the only thing that makes sense to me. It’s sort of a made-up holiday, although as others have noted, harvest festivals have been going on pretty much forever.
Labor Day, too. A day set aside to show appreciation for the workers of the Americas and to commemorate an event that happened in May.
Does anyone remember Peanuts-themed Thanksgiving greeting cards? This was in the 1960s. You were supposed to send them like Christmas cards, only they were for Thanksgiving and featured all the Peanuts characters, with a heavy emphasis on Snoopy (naturally). (Can’t remember if Woodstock was much on the scene yet.) Wish I still had some of those.
EDIT: I remember they were put out by Hallmark. Charles Schulz had some sort of deal.