For those expats who today will be celebrating Thanksgiving in Yucatan, we at MID-POINT and Punto Medio send our sincere wishes for a safe and enjoyable holiday.
Because many Mexicans are curious about the origin and significance of Thanksgiving, and many of us expats may need a bit of brushing up on the true background of the holiday, here is a portion of an article from officeholidays.com:
Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November in the United States of America.
Traditionally, this holiday celebrates the giving of thanks for the autumn harvest.
The tradition of Thanksgiving
From ancient times, the custom of giving thanks for a successful annual harvest formed the basis for some of the world’s earliest festivals and indeed, scratch the surface of several popular modern holidays and you will find a harvest origin.
However harvest thanksgiving is not commonly the key focus of a major modern event and arguably the success of the American holiday has been due to it being seen as a time to give ‘thanks’ for the foundation of the nation and not just as a celebration of the harvest.
The American tradition of Thanksgiving dates back to 1621, when the pilgrims gave thanks for their first bountiful harvest in Plymouth Rock. The settlers had arrived in November 1620, founding the first permanent English settlement in the New England region.
This first Thanksgiving was celebrated for three days, with the settlers feasting with the natives on dried fruits, boiled pumpkin, turkey, venison and much more.
The celebration, however, was not repeated until many years later, when in 1789 George Washington proclaimed Thanksgiving to be a national holiday on Thursday 26 November that year – setting the precedent of the last Thursday in November. Despite this, the holiday was celebrated on different days from state to state and Thomas Jefferson later did away with the holiday.
Thanksgiving didn’t become a nationwide holiday until President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November a national day of Thanksgiving in 1863. Every year following, the President proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving was switched from the final Thursday in November to the next-to-last Thursday in November by President Roosevelt in 1939 as he wanted to create a longer Christmas shopping period to simulate the economy which was still recovering after The Great Depression.
This caused widespread confusion with many states ignoring the change until Congress sanctioned the fourth Thursday in November as a legal holiday in 1941.
Source: officeholidays.com
