The idea in the old days was you feasted after harvest when you had a lot of food to spare
Thanksgiving is specifically a harvest festival (one of the rare human near-universals) in which there is a feast held post-harvest (you know, when there is plenty of food!). Moving it to February would miss the entire point.
Thanksgiving is the last bastion against absolute lunacy that is putting up Christmas decorations immediately after Halloween.
Counter proposal: Keep Thanksgiving where it is, and elevate MLK Jr Day and Presidents Day to serious holiday status. Bonus points if we can also get Patriots' Day widely recognized and celebrated outside of the greater Boston area.
Bump here. The problem isn't too many holidays close together here, it's the vast swath of "non holidays" between Christmas and Memorial day. It's essentially 5 months of no long weekends or family - unless you're somehow lucky enough to be at a company that actually observes MLK or Presidents day.
New February tradition: Cherry pie and a screening of Our American Cousin.
I would also like everyone's birthday to be a paid holiday.
Sucks for those leap year babies.
the pilgrim thing is all made up anyway
explain
European protestants (pilgrims) did in fact colonize North America, and they were extremely thankful for being able to survive a year, starting from basically nothing. I can blame them for many things, but not that. Also harvest celebrations are universal.
I'm not sure where you get the idea that "the pilgrim thing is all made up". It's was very well documented at the time, and the texts of the individuals involved are available through the national archives.
The national holiday of Thanksgiving has been transformed into part of the retail Christmas season. It was cemented as such by FDR. The holiday is more about focusing on Christmas spending, and guaranteeing annual profits for retailers than it is about giving thanks to God for the blessings that have been bestowed upon individuals.
If you don't like when the holiday is, then you are more than welcome to celebrate it at another time, just as much as you can not celebrate it at all, if you choose so. If the actions of the last few years have shown us anything, it's that traditions are no longer sacred. Just live your life the way you choose, and ignore what everyone else is doing.
I think what he was referring to was exactly how the Thanksgiving feast was done during the pilgrim time. Not the fact that it was made up and never happened. What we are taught in the United States in school about the first thanksgiving is not exactly accurate.
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