To be annoyed by Thanksgiving in the UK?

[talomon]

Is it me or Thanksgiving is becoming quite widespread in the UK?

I studied in the states and live in central London, so maybe I am exposed to American people more than most, but I still feel many of my Brit and French friends and acquittances have started hosting Thanksgiving and treating it like a major holiday. Ten years ago it was quite obscure.

I mean I get that it's a nice occasion, and the food spread looks nice especially for social media, but still I am not sure I like it.

YANBU = Our culture is becoming to Americanized
YABU = It's a great holiday to celebrate

I've never met even 1 non American who celebrates it.

Canadians do thanksgiving, but in October.

Only those with American connections, or an occasional rare school history project.

Yes. Canadians harvest earlier so celebrate in Oct and Americans harvest later so it's Nov.

Married to an American and we have an Orphans’ Thanksgiving with all our American friends. Don’t know anyone else who celebrates. But I can’t see what would be so “annoying” about it even if the whole of the UK did get on board and start to do so. It’s a turkey dinner with all your friends and / or family one Thursday night in November. I like turkey, I like my friends, I like the two together. I don’t really care what the occasion is. And unlike UK-style Christmas; that’s it. One day. The turkey fryer comes out of the loft in the morning and is back there the following day and I don’t have to listen to my colleagues witter on for a full month in advance about fucking matching pyjamas and gingerbread houses and how they’re creating weeks’ worth of festive and special.

Halloween is most definitely not American as it was always a thing in Ireland. We dressed up (in bin liners and sheets, with masks made from cereal boxes) and went around the neighbourhood, often with lanterns carved from sugar beet and holding a candle. Back in the early 1970s. And all our parents used to do it in their time as well, back int he 1940/50s.

I'm American and lived in England from 1995-2004 and even I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving. It was not the same because it's always on a Thursday and back then, it was hard to find a turkey in November. Obviously, this has changed in recent years.

I love reading Waitrose "Food" Magazine online and I did notice an unusual tab on their food selections. It was specifically for "Thanksgiving". That just seemed weird to me. It's basically food people in the UK eat for Christmas but it's not the point!

Btw, that's not American people trying to "indoctrinate" people from other countries into "our" celebrations. We are just living our life. This is all someone else's doing! Seriously, Waitrose?!

Btw, that's not American people trying to "indoctrinate" people from other countries into "our" celebrations. We are just living our life. This is all someone else's doing! Seriously, Waitrose?!

exactly this and it’s exactly what happened with Black Friday too. I’m not American but it’s pretty clear to me that shared popular culture has been seized on by various marketing departments.

I wouldn’t expect an American thanksgiving to ever really catch on here tbh. Much like ‘boxing day’ and traditional sales have never really caught on anywhere outside the UK.

Never ever known anyone without American connections to celebrate it.

Yeah, I had to sit through a school assembly recently. Why? We have harvest festival. It doesn’t have to be religious. Why not secularise our own traditions instead of importing one from a capitalist place??

Some of it is just to have something to talk about that week tbf.

You left out "magical ".

Ah, the dreary ungrateful British resenting those who give thanks 😂

As much as anything else, our own traditional harvest festival will be at the right time for our own harvest in our own land, rather than some other elsewhere’s that’s nothing to do with us.

I’ve started doing small decorations for a secular spring festival too… (cos I like spring).

The only people I know who celebrate Thanksgiving in the UK are American, have American/one American parent, or have an American spouse.

Do you often get so uptight about what other people choose to do?

Well, the 'Pilgrim Fathers' were British subjects, weren't they? So if you want to celebrate Thanksgiving, go ahead. A lot of people celebrate holidays with a less tenuous connection to themselves. Although considering what early Colonists did to the Native Populations, it should really be a day of reflection & reconciliation.

Canada has 'officially' celebrated Thanksgiving in October since 1879, although the origins go back much further, and it's nothing to do with Americans or America.

I don't know anyone in the UK who celebrates Thanksgiving but it wouldn't bother me anymore than someone celebrating Diwali or Noruz. Why would people being happy and enjoying themselves bother you, especially as you aren't forced to participate? Do you feel this way about all foreign celebrations?

We had a type of thanksgiving over here but nobody celebrates it now and it wasn't in November. I think it was a day when debts were written off or something.

Also I know not a single person that celebrates thanksgiving over here apart from a woman that used to live in Canada I think. She doesn't go all out either, I think it's just to catch up with her kids.

Never heard of anyone celebrating Thanksgiving in the UK, apart from Americans. Why would we given the history of how the Native Americans were treated.

DH, DS and I celebrate it.

We are not American.

YABU.

It's weird to celebrate an American festival in the UK. Why not pick the Canadian one if you're desperate for a celebratory moment? It's a Commonweath country, far closer to the UK culturally, with a much longer shared history. Plus theirs is farther away from Christmas.

@ElmoNeedsThePotty what are you celebrating?

There are 1/4 of million Americans and Canadians (and their family) living in the UK. It would be silly for stores not to not try and profit off that.

Thanksgiving is Canadian as well. Or are you just annoyed that a person you never met, and don't know for sure exists might be celebrating on the "wrong" day?

We celebrate it every year with American friends. It is a wonderful holiday! Just friends and great food and that’s it. I used to live in the States and it was always my favourite holiday there - when I mentioned that to an American friend here in the UK she immediately said we must come at Thanksgiving and we have ever since.

I love that - IME there’s always an open door at Thanksgiving. Not so at Christmas because it’s more complicated with presents etc!

To be honest I wish it was more of a thing in the UK because it seemed to stave off the Christmas madness a bit in the States coming so late in the autumn.