The Unites States celebrates a uniquely American version of Thanksgiving today. One that is founded in gratitude for earthly nutrition and human survival, but has come to mean so much less.
The concept of Thanksgiving is not unique to the USA. Civilizations have always given thanks for the needs to survive. Centralizing it has been the work of organized communities, whether they be social, religious, or otherwise connected.
The American version stems from harvest festivals originating during the reign of Henry VIII during the English Reformation. Henry had created his own religion to defy the Catholic Church, and leveraged this as a means of unifying the congregations forced to visibly follow the newly established religion. Thanksgiving days were also informally established to remember historic events, like victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588, or Guy Fawkes Day in 1605.
But it's the religious affiliation that has resulted in the recurring establishment of a specific day of Thanksgiving. Native Americans were said to have helped Pilgrims and Puritans survive through a year of poor crops by supplementing their food provisions, for which the Colonists gave thanks. Annualizing such a day was an easy sell, and eventually became a national holiday.
Other countries celebrate in a similar manner. Canada's occurs on the second Monday in October, which makes sense in that their growing and harvest seasons end earlier than America's. Germany's harvest festival, Erntedankfest, also occurs in early October. Brazil's is interesting in that, as a southern hemisphere country, its harvest is six months away. Netherlands celebrates in alignment with America because many of the Colonists that inhabited Plymouth Colony had come from there.
In present day America, Thanksgiving is still honored as a day to generally be thankful, and to give or support those who are dealing with hardship. In a world bombarded with time demands, it can be a welcome break and reminder of our humanness and connection to each other, so long as we can extract our minds from the temptation of holiday sales. To that end, I wish everyone sustainment, abundance, and love.
