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 28 November, which is after 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 examples of fiction inspired by the Thanksgiving holiday that are in the TU Library collection or in the public domain.

The Thanksgiving Visitor is a short story by the American author Truman Capote, originally published in 1967.

In the tale, a boy recalls his life with an elderly relative in rural Alabama, the United States of America, in the 1930s and the lesson she taught him one Thanksgiving Day about dealing with a bully from school.

There are also some general observations from different characters, such as:

Now listen to me, Buddy: there is only one unpardonable sin – deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. That, never.

*

Here is a brief excerpt from the story, as posted online:

…spring housecleaning…always preceded the Thanksgiving assembly…We polished the parlor furniture, the piano, the black curio cabinet…the formal walnut rockers and florid Biedermeier pieces — rubbed them with lemon-scented wax until the place was shining as lemon skin and smelled like a citrus grove. Curtains were laundered and rehung, pillows punched, rugs beaten; wherever one glanced, dust motes and tiny feathers drifted in the sparkling November light sifting through the tall rooms. Poor Queenie was relegated to the kitchen, for fear she might leave a stray hair, perhaps a flea, in the more dignified areas of the house.

The most delicate task was preparing the napkins and tablecloths that would decorate the dining room. The linen had belonged to my friend’s mother, who had received it as a wedding gift; though it had been used only once or twice a year, say two hundred times in the past eighty years, nevertheless it was eighty years old, and mended patches and freckled discolorations were apparent. Probably it had not been a fine material to begin with, but Miss Sook treated it as though it had been woven by golden hands on heavenly looms. “My mother said, ‘The day may come when all we can offer is well water and cold cornbread, but at least we’ll be able to serve it on a table set with proper linen.’”

…”Chrysanthemums,” my friend commented as we moved through our garden stalking flower-show blossoms with decapitating shears, “are like lions. Kingly characters. I always expect them to spring. To turn on me with a growl and a roar.”

…I always knew just what she meant, and in this instance the whole idea of it, the notion of lugging all those growling gorgeous roaring lions into the house and caging them in tacky vases (our final decorative act on Thanksgiving Eve) made us so giggly and giddy and stupid we were soon out of breath.

…A lively day, that Thanksgiving. Lively with on-and-off showers and abrupt sky clearings accompanied by thrusts of raw sun and sudden bandit winds snatching autumn’s leftover leaves…

*

Another celebrated story for Thanksgiving is An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving by the American author Louisa May Alcott.

An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving is about a family of eight children growing up in a New Hampshire farmhouse.

It tells of how much country life is superior in many ways to urban life, and also how the ways of the past were better than those of the present.

The appeal of this story is in the descriptions of the New Hampshire children’s lifestyle, in the fun they have from family life, and the trouble they get into when they are unsupervised.

Their parents must leave unexpectedly at the beginning of the story, and the children decide to make Thanksgiving dinner themselves.

They make basic errors, such as cooking the Thanksgiving turkey with an herb known as catnip.

Catnip is one of the approximately 250 species in the mint family and has a leafy green appearance.

As a common herb, when catnip is sniffed by cats, they may show signs of affection, relaxation, and happiness. Other cats will display active behaviors, such as playfulness or sometimes even aggression.

Catnip is not usually a cooking ingredient for humans, although in some households, it has been used to make tea.

Here is the beginning of the story by Louisa May Alcott, which is out of copyright and available for free download online:

November had come to the New Hampshire hills. The crops were in, and barn, buttery, and bin were overflowing with the harvest that rewarded the summer’s hard work. The big kitchen was a jolly place just now, for in the great fireplace roared a
cheerful fire; on the walls hung garlands of dried apples, onions, and corn; up aloft from the beams shone crook-necked squashes, juicy hams, and dried venison—for in those days deer still haunted the deep forests.

Savory smells were in the air; on the crane hung steaming kettles, and down among the red embers copper saucepans simmered.
A white-headed baby lay in the old blue cradle that had rocked seven other babies, now and then lifting his head to look out, like a round, full moon, then subsided to kick and crow contentedly, and suck the rosy apple he had no teeth to bite. Two small boys sat on the wooden settle shelling corn for popping. Four young girls stood at the long dresser, busily chopping meat, pounding spice, and slicing apples; and the
tongues of Tilly, Prue, Roxy, and Rhody went as fast as their hands.

Farmer Bassett and Eph, the oldest boy, were “chorin’ round” outside, for Thanksgiving was at hand, and all must be in order for that time-honored day.
To and fro, from table to hearth, bustled Mrs. Bassett, flushed and floury, but busy as the queen bee of this busy little hive should be.
“I do like to begin seasonable and have things to my mind. Thanksgivin’ dinners can’t be drove, and it does take a sight of victuals to fill all these hungry stomicks,”
said the good woman, as she gave a vigorous stir to the great kettle of cider applesauce, and cast a glance at the fine pies set forth on the buttery shelves.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)