Celebrations USA and UK style

Steve and I would like to send our best wishes to all of our friends in the USA. It is a just little early for their thanksgiving celebration, but from what we see on TV, we in the UK understand that it is a time for families to gather together and give thanks for all the things that they consider are blessings in their lives.

Those of us who still go to church in the UK will have already seen Harvest Festival a while back, which although it is still about giving thanks it is more connected to having a good harvest and is a much more humble or simple celebration I feel.

TV and movie coverage of American celebrations have caused many people in our country to grab hold of anything that they think might lighten our winter darkness and make a bit of fun. Any good excuse for a party, or a barbeque. The supermarkets are all full of Halloween costumes from September on and parent encourage their children to go and play trick of treat on the neighbour’s. Halloween is also on the UK church time table  but again is a more quiet thing, when we think of our dear departed and all hallowed souls.

 I wonder why the population of the USA, don’t bother to pick up on our special times. Like Guy Fawkes Night!? Because in our area there is nothing that matches the Bonfire Night in Lewes, in East Sussex, we hold our Bonfire Night in Littlehampton weeks before.

There is a fun fair on the sea front and a BIG bonfire on the green there’s a big parade, where they choose a bonfire Queen who is paraded on the back of a truck sitting on a throne with her ladies in waiting the Bonfire Princesses.

 

 

 

 

Of course I should explain to our friends across the sea that this is because good old Guy Fawkes, Britain’s most notorious traitor, who tried to blow up Parliament in the infamous Gunpowder Plot. I wouldn’t mind betting though, that if you asked any of the young lads enjoying themselves throwing bangers at the girls, if they know what they are commemorating; Is it the failure of the Gunpowder Plot or is it the attempt to destroy the houses of parliament. Bet you tuppence they don’t know…. Haven’t got a clue. Then what about Mayday? This is at its base a pagan thing isn’t it and just a bit worrying that they select a young virgin for May Queen…., A child actually. These days some of the more proper thinking groups will also pick a May Prince to try to make it more fair. It is about fertility at its root.

The Stores and internet sites are trying to inflict Black Friday on the UK as well. UHHH? Jump on the bandwagon money grabbers of the world.

Anyway.

The information below I have just found on Google is in case anybody in the UK is still in the dark about Thanksgiving or who cares.

I give thanks every day and every night before I go to sleep. I Am Blessed.

Thanksgiving in the United States is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated the second Monday in October.

Year	U.S. Thanksgiving	Canadian Thanksgiving
2016	Thursday, November 24	Monday, October 10

In a 1789 proclamation, President George Washington called on the people of the United States to acknowledge God for affording them “an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness” by observing a day of thanksgiving. Devoting a day to “public thanksgiving and prayer,” as Washington called it, became a yearly tradition in many communities.

Thanksgiving became a national holiday in 1863. In that year, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made his Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. He asked his fellow citizens to “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise …”
It was not until 1941 that Congress finally designated the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day, thus creating a federal holiday.

Of course, Thanksgiving is not born of presidential proclamations. Native American harvest festivals had been celebrated for centuries, and colonial services dated back to the late 16th century. Thanksgiving Day, as we know it today, began in the early 1600s when settlers in both Massachusetts and Virginia came together to give thanks for their survival, for the fertility of their fields, and for their faith. The most widely known early Thanksgiving is that of the Pilgrims in Plimoth, Massachusetts, who feasted for 3 days with the Wampanoag people in 1621.

Note that Thanksgiving Day in Canada is celebrated on the second Monday in October and has different origins. The first Canadian Thanksgiving Day was observed on April 15, 1872, to celebrate the recovery of the prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) from a serious illness.