Hey,

To all my friends on HN I wish a very Happy Thanksgiving. Yeah I know this is a holiday celebrated only by US citizens, none the less I am hopeful that each of you has something to be thankful for during this last year. Sometimes it is difficult but to see or appreciate but I am sure it is there. God bless and keep each of you and your loved ones safe, fed, and secure in the next year.

You said it all, Lester.

I think we should also start with such a Thanksgiving-day, but you take me every year by surprise. There was a time I was thinking that your Thanksgiving-day was the day before Christmas, due to this turkeys involved...
Is there an understandable reason why you have your Thanksgiving-day on November 26th or is it just a marketing trick to fill up the sales between Haloween and Christmas? A kind of as we have our St-Niklaas coming from Spain and bringing al kind of toys, oranges and sweets for the children who still believe in him?

Aloysius...You don't believe in Santa Claus??!!?? What kind of country you runnin' over there?

We celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November to commemorate pullin' a fast one on the indians...

In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November. This was at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation he entreated all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.

Ok so we pulled a fast one on the Wampanoags then we eventually took them clear out of the equation...sounds about right, very American. It is not seen that way though. We do commemorate the harvest feast that was shared....it's just that no one knows more than it was the colonists and some Indians. Well here's an interesting take on it


Suz

Thanks Suz! More information that I only had part of.

Bushmaster wrote:

Aloysius...You don't believe in Santa Claus??!!?? What kind of country you runnin' over there? We celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November to commemorate pullin' a fast one on the indians...

Bushy, to correct things: your Santa Claus is the guy from the North who put gifts under the Christmastree. Our "Sinterklaas" is coming from Spain and brings toys and sweet on December 6th to children who have been not too ennoying during the past year (and are young enough to believe in this holy man with his white horse and his black servants. About these servants there has been lots of problems in the Netherlands last year...)

Did I mention we have both Sinterklaas AND Santa Claus?
but no Thanksgiving.

Oh-boy...Look out for the PC police on that one...

And Siinterklass sailed his ship into a harbour in holland before Christmas (December 5 th or so) and his main black servant is refered to as Black Pete.
As his servants were from north Africa of Moorish/Berber decent. It is important to acknowledge that they were servants not slaves.

It all sounds like a bit of poppycock to me.

Black Pete = Zwarte Piet

I should try Google on "Zwarte Piet" as he is rather famous. Certainly became famous last year with all this discrimination problems in the Netherlands.

just chose:

www.google.be/search?q...3&ie=UTF-8