Why Do We Celebrate Thanksgiving?

By Darren Lacsado 

Celebrating Thanksgiving, let alone Canadian Thanksgiving, has become a contentious decision in recent years due to the holiday’s origin. In Canada especially, as more residential school gravesites are unearthed on what seems to be a monthly basis, the idea of celebrating the Pagan holiday is disconcerting, to say the least. Some opponents of Thanksgiving would even go so far as to say celebrating Thanksgiving is akin to celebrating Indigenous genocide, referring to the history of the tradition. However, the origin of Thanksgiving is much more complicated than that. Many people point toward the 1621 Thanksgiving in Plymouth as the origin of Thanksgiving. It’s an idyllic scene torn right out of a fairy tale: the Pilgrims invite the Wampanoag people to break bread with them, share a delicious feast together, and start the annual tradition of celebrating the harvest and union. According to this origin, then, the notion that Thanksgiving isthe celebration of Indigenous genocide is wrong. (Granted, it’s also right: one New England colony celebrated such a Thanksgiving, in which they gave thanks for “subduing” the Pequo people, dating back to 1637.) The origin of Thanksgiving might depend, then, on where you draw the starting line. Did it start when the United States president Abraham Lincoln declared it a national holiday in 1861, due in large part to lobbying by writer Sarah Josepha Hale? Their notion of the holiday was that it celebrated a hopeful period of peace, harmony, and tranquillity in the United States after the bloodshed caused by the American Civil War. Or perhaps, because we’re Canadian, we should draw the starting line in 1879, when governor general Vincent Massey proclaimed it a national holiday in Canada? Is it even necessary to draw Thanksgiving’s origin to when it became a national holiday? Indigenous celebrations for bountiful harvests with song and feast have long been observed before the settlers had set food on land. Perhaps, in a gesture of reconciliation, Thanksgiving should be renamed something similar to Indigenous Peoples Day Setting aside its origin for a moment, how is Thanksgiving celebrated today? Some such as Dr. Judge Glock (a historian—not a doctor or a judge) prescribe to Hale and Lincoln’s notion that Thanksgiving is a celebration of gratitude and union. For advocates like him, it is a time to remember the hardships of the past, be grateful for the privileges of the present, and celebrate the creation of a brighter future. Others choose to forego Thanksgiving altogether and instead opt to channel their October festivity into celebrating an Indigenous Peoples Day, such as Vogue writer Christian Allaire.