Thanksgiving Around the World

By Nate Johnson  

Our school is filled with people from many different countries, and when I arrived at Dalat as a 7th grader, I was shocked to discover that Thanksgiving (as Americans celebrate it) is not celebrated internationally. Up until living overseas, I hadn’t considered what other countries thought about American Thanksgiving or if they also celebrated it. I was totally clueless, and I was rather American-minded due to having lived there my whole life until 7th grade.   

The concept and celebration of Thanksgiving has been around for thousands of years, and the concept of a harvest celebration is almost as old as the idea of agrarian society itself. The concept of Thanksgiving has always been around as a form of thanks to deities for a successful harvest, and this celebration is usually celebrated, but in modern times, many different countries have made this an annual celebration of gratitude and family. Different countries celebrate in a variety of ways, so out of curiosity, I wanted to do more research on how different countries celebrate Thanksgiving.  

Americans celebrate this holiday by gathering together with family and sometimes friends to share a large meal that often consists of turkey, rolls, stuffing, pumpkin pie, green beans, mashed potatoes, and a few other traditional foods. The celebration of Thanksgiving in America as a nation started when George Washington defeated the British in an important battle. After that, many American presidents declared days of thanksgiving and prayer, but it wasn’t made an annual holiday until Ulysses S. Grant made it so in 1870. It has been celebrated on the fourth Thursday of every November since then in America.  

Canadian thanksgivers had days of thanksgiving similarly to America without a set date but solidified their annual tradition in 1872. This tradition is held on the second Monday of October, and the reason for the celebration is the end of the harvest season.  

In Korea, there is a holiday called Chuseok, which celebrates the harvest season in the fall. Like many other “Thanksgiving” holidays, Korean people gather with their families in their hometowns to share a meal with their relatives. Foods eaten during Chuseok include songpyeon (rice cakes), yakgwa (deep fried wheat honey thingy), pears, and hallabong. Another tradition and theme of Chuseok is ancestor veneration, but many Christian Koreans at Dalat substitute this practice with prayer and thanksgiving to God. 

Esther Jung, a Korean Dalat senior this year, said this about her family's Thanksgiving celebration; “We invite friends over, and we make many kinds of food such as japchae and bulgogi, and another one of the main things we do is play a traditional board game called Yunnori. Similarly to Americans, we also pray and share what we are thankful for during our gathering.” 

Regardless of when you celebrate or what kind of food you eat, we could all stand to be a little more thankful from time to time. It’s important to celebrate our country's traditions, but it’s more important to celebrate God’s blessings in our lives with the people we love.