Thanksgiving is starting to become a thing in the UK. I'm not sure if it's the big meal or the Friday shopping that is the main motivator, but I suspect the latter. Black Friday sales have already taken hold, and they've already led to violence. Black Friday is rather awkward in a country that doesn't have Thursday and Friday off work, and I have overheard people asking "what is Black Friday, anyway?" The context brings them to Thanksgiving, which people have heard of over here, but it's not universally understood, as I've fielded many questions about it.
So, for the benefit of my UK friends, Thanksgiving is a holiday that happens on the fourth Thursday in November every year, at least in the USA. The whole point is to give thanks for whatever good things you have, whatever they may be. It is associated with large family gatherings involving a huge meal with turkey as the centerpiece, but obviously this is adapted to suit whoever is celebrating. Some people don't have families to gather, and others don't eat meat, but the family meal is a tradition, not the point of the day. The point is to acknowledge and show gratitude for the good things you have in your life. Most of America gets a day off work, though obviously not everyone (the issue of going out shopping on Thanksgiving is actually a bit controversial, since it means someone else is working), and many people have Thursday and Friday off. As a teacher, I always had Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The large meal takes a full day to prepare, and my family always has turkey (Butterball, of course), mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, cranberry sauce, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and sometimes my mother's Christmas hermit cookies.
Big meals celebrating the harvest are not rare around the world, and the story of the first thanksgiving meal in America with the pilgrims and the Native Americans is part of every American child's education. The fact that those two groups were killing each other not long afterwards is generally ignored for the sake of a good story. That's not where Thanksgiving comes from, though. Giving thanks for the harvest with a big meal grew as a tradition gradually and was popular enough by the 1800's. As a national holiday, though, it actually has its roots in the Civil War. This was not an especially happy time, as you might imagine, and it claimed more American lives than any other war we've ever fought. It was exceptionally brutal and bloody, and most people either lost a family member or close friend or at least knew someone who did. Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November to be a national day of thanksgiving, as keeping focused on what one still had was particularly important in the midst of a Civil War.
Thanksgiving is truly my favorite holiday. It doesn't have any religious affiliations, it doesn't celebrate the birth of anyone in particular, it doesn't commemorate any important event, and it doesn't necessitate awkward gift-giving. It is simply a day devoted to positive thinking. Plenty of people associate it with awkward family gatherings and gluttony, to be sure, but the idea of devoting a day to being thankful for what you have is fantastic anyway. Britain could do with some positive thinking, so I highly encourage this tradition to cross the ocean.
Black Friday basically just came about because people tend to have a day off, so stores take advantage of this by making big sales on that day to start off the Christmas shopping season. The irony of following a day of giving thanks for what you already have with a day of militant consumerism devoted to what you don't have but really want is not lost on me. The day off part is important, though, if you really want Black Friday to work in Britain. Otherwise, it's just awkward.
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