(The New American) Although many holidays have broad international appeal, Thanksgiving — arguably America’s second-favorite holiday after Christmas — is celebrated only in the United States and Canada (Canadian Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October). What originated as a sort of harvest festival among British colonists in the New World has taken on a life of its own. No longer is Thanksgiving a mere celebration of the harvest (a ritual found in many cultures); it has become a symbol of the oft-neglected virtue of gratitude.
In hindsight, it is not surprising that a day consecrated to gratitude for the blessings of Providence should have arisen among the predominantly pious, hard-pressed early American colonists. Most of them had chosen the austerities of life in the American colonies over the drab certainties of the stratified Old World. Here there were no manorial lords to provide lodging, substance, and protection, and no ossified aristocracy to perpetuate the feudalism of their ancestors.
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