Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on different dates in the United States of America (US), Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries such as Brazil and the Philippines.
It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year (similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn, including in Germany and Japan).
Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the US and around the same part of the year in other places.
Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.
The Thammasat University Library collection includes a number of books about Thanksgiving traditions.
This year Thanksgiving falls on 23 November, which is shortly before Loy Krathong, a festival that is naturally more widely celebrated in the Kingdom.
Food historians, sociologists, students of folklore, anthropologists, and others may be interested to investigate what past generations have considered appropriate to eat on Thanksgiving.
For many American people, Thanksgiving is a time to eat special foods.
For example, a traditional meal on Thanksgiving in some countries includes turkey.
This is probably because years ago, when the pilgrims in America celebrated the first Thanksgiving, they ate wild turkeys.
In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Native Americans shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. Some other traditional dishes do not date back this far.
Here are some thoughts about Thanksgiving by authors, some of whom are represented in the TU Library collection:
I am grateful for what I am & have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. Well, anything for variety. I am ready to try this for the next 1000 years, & exhaust it. How sweet to think of! My extremities well charred, and my intellectual part too, so that there is no danger of worm or rot for a long while. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it — for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.
- Henry David Thoreau, in a letter to Harrison Gray Otis Blake (1856)
Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West, From North and South, come the pilgrim and guest, When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board The old broken links of affection restored, When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more, And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before. What moistens the lips and what brightens the eye? What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin pie?
- John Greenleaf Whittier, The Pumpkin
And let these altars, wreathed with flowers And piled with fruits, awake again Thanksgivings for the golden hours, The early and the latter rain!
- John Greenleaf Whittier, For an Autumn Festival
After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one’s own relations.
- Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance
Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything.
- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Our rural ancestors, with little blest, Patient of labor when the end was rest, Indulged the day that housed their annual grain, With feasts, and off’rings, and a thankful strain.
- Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace
It requires but a few threads of hope, for the heart that is skilled in the secret, to weave a web of happiness.
- Sarah Josepha Hale
When prosperous the fool trembles for the evil that is to come; in adversity the philosopher smiles for the good that he has had.
- Ambrose Bierce, Epigrams, The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce (1911)
Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
- Samuel Johnson, Tour to the Hebrides (1773)
Whoever does not express his gratitude to people will never be grateful to God.
- Muhammad, reported in al-Tirmidhī, al-Ţabarānī, Musnad Ahmad, Musnad Abū Hanīfah, Musnad Abu Ya’la.
The gratitude of most people is but a secret desire of receiving greater benefits.
- François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims, Maxim 298 (1665–1678)
O Lord, that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act I, scene 1
Thankfulness is the tune of angels.
- Edmund Spenser, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
To receive honestly is the best thanks for a good thing.
- George MacDonald, Mary Marston (1881)
A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.
- Cicero, For Plancius, Section 33
Gratitude is expensive.
- Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
The still small voice of gratitude.
- Thomas Gray, For Music, Stanza 5
From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be, That no life lives forever, That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.
- Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Garden of Proserpine, Stanza 11
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
- Marcel Proust
Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.
- A. Milne Winnie-the-Pooh
Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
- K. Chesterton
If the only prayer you said was thank you, that would be enough.
- Meister Eckhart
Love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride.
- Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.
- Thornton Wilder
In everyday life, we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)