Happy Thanksgiving. I made pumpkin cookies a couple of years ago, but I did not get around to it this year. Pumpkin cookies are one of my absolute favourites, after snickerdoodle cookies of course. This year, I will be going out for my Thanksgiving meal. I do not always take the day off, but I have done in the past couple of years and have done every few years since I first moved to the UK. (I've actually worked through most of them.) Last year, I went back to America to celebrate it, and that was the first time I have done so in the 12+ years that I have been here.
Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate the harvest. When the settlers arrived, they found the winter to be troublesome and had to rely on help from the native American people. They had the first Thanksgiving in 1621.
Did you know that former president Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday and choose the date as the last Thursday in November? Before that, each state set their own date for Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving was always used to celebrate the harvest and would generally appear in earlier November of at the end of October. The holiday also has religious meaning and the dates of celebration varied. At one point, it was twinned on November 6th to celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes was not successful.
Variations of the day are celebrated in other countries. I think it would be great if the UK adopted this holiday. Black Friday (the big shopping day after Thanksgiving) seems to make an impact here, and I think that having the holiday would prevent Christmas appearing in October (or even September). It's also great fun. It's two days off of work, having a meal, watching sport or parades on television and then it's okay to start thinking about Christmas.
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