What is Thanksgiving Day?
Thanksgiving Day is a United States holiday on which families gather for a large meal to give thanks for the harvest and the blessings of the past year. The traditional menu centres on roast turkey, with stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. Many people travel long distances to be together, which makes the days around it among the busiest travel days of the American year. Football games, parades and the custom of saying what each person is thankful for are part of the day.
The day is associated with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, which began in 1924, with televised American football, and with the presidential pardon of a turkey. The Friday after, Black Friday, is the start of the Christmas shopping season and a day off for many workers, though it is not a federal holiday. Other places keep their own thanksgivings: Canada on the second Monday of October, Saint Lucia on the first Monday of October, Liberia on the first Thursday of November, and Grenada on 25 October, which marks the 1983 US-led intervention.
Why it is observed
The holiday is traditionally linked to a harvest feast held in 1621 by the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag people, though days of thanksgiving were observed in many other colonies too. President George Washington proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving for 26 November 1789, and in 1863 Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving for the last Thursday of November, after a long campaign by the writer Sarah Josepha Hale. In 1939 Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it a week earlier, to lengthen the Christmas shopping season, and states split over the date. In 1941 Congress settled it by law as the fourth Thursday of November, and Roosevelt signed the resolution on 26 December 1941.
How the date is set
Thanksgiving in the United States is the fourth Thursday of November, so it falls between 22 and 28 November. Canada has a separate Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October.
How it is observed
Thanksgiving is a federal holiday, so banks, government offices, schools and most businesses are closed on the Thursday. Many employers also give the Friday off, or workers take it as leave, creating a four-day weekend. Many shops are closed on the Thursday, though some open in the evening for sales, and public transport runs a holiday timetable. Airports and highways are very busy on the Wednesday before and the Sunday after. There is no general legal right to premium pay, so pay and time off depend on the employer and the contract.
Sources
United States