I am not talking about Americans abroad having small private celebrations and inviting non-American friends, but specifically non-Americans with no ties to the US in non-American countries celebrating it on their own. Christmas has been celebrated in many non-Christian countries for a while, with its original meaning of Jesus largely eroded away, and same goes for Halloween increasingly. It seems to be only a matter of time until this happens to Thanksgiving as well… or is it?
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Yes Canada
HAVE I seen it happening? No. I don’t get abroad very much though, to be honest.
COULD I see it happening? You know, it probably already does. Many if not most cultures have or had harvest festivals, which is basically what Thanksgiving grew out of. But if you specifically mean like adopting the American style of Thanksgiving holiday? I imagine there might be small pockets of people who do it around this time of year for fun or because they think it would be a good idea, to have a day specifically to spend time with family and reflect on the things you have to be thankful for, but I don’t imagine it’s ever going to really take off in other parts of the world like Christmas and to a lesser extent Halloween have.
Canadians do Thanksgiving too just on a different day. I don’t think it’s because they were “Americanized.”
Not really.
They’re more than welcome to, I just haven’t seen it.
No. It’s a more American holiday with an American association and backstory. We’re more likely to export traditions for preexisting holidays or ones without American historical context.
A Friendsgiving seems more likely to happen. Having a group of friends who can all bring a dish or provide some sort of food or beverage gathering wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. After all everyone has something to be thankful for. Celebrate with friends
I’ve seen UK subs mention Black Friday sales, so they’re at least getting into the tradition of our holiday capitalism.
I’ve never heard of such a thing happening. Anyone abroad who is celebrating Thanksgiving is either American or invited by Americans to participate.
I could see some version of it gaining some momentum purely for marketing reasons, much like Black Friday, but I think in a lot of places there’d be pushback against Americanization.
I’ve never seen or heard of it happening outside of the US. From my observations, this is one US tradition that recent immigrants are quickest to accept and make their own. It’s a day to be with friends and family and eat a lot of food, who doesn’t love that?
I’ve lived in several counties outside of the US. The only one that had a Thanksgiving was Canada and it’s not as big as in the US. (My kid had a referee clinic thanksgiving night and they didn’t cancel it; more than half the class showed up. In the US there is zero chance it would have still happened.)
Outside of Canada, I never saw anyone celebrate thanksgiving unless they were expats. It’s not something that I’ve noticed catching on the way Halloween is.
I have seen “Black Friday” sales though.
No.
Thanksgiving is first and foremost a harvest feast. Humans have had harvest feasts since we first developed agriculture.
I’ve never heard of this – this might be a better question to ask people who live in other countries than Americans. It’d be surprising to me if they did. Halloween is about having horror-tinged fun, partying and eating candy, and those things export easily. Thanksgiving is a family holiday that’s closely tied to a distinctly and specifically American cultural myth. It would also have to compete with the harvest celebrations that already exist in many other countries.
I have a friend from France who celebrates it with his family in order to spend family time.
Canadians are the only ones
Thanksgiving is just an autumn harvest festival with food celebrated with friends and family. And while details will change (maybe prayers or rituals or something) lots of places have similar holidays already – Canada (yes, Thanksgiving, but different), Korea (Chuseok), China (Mooncake Festival), Brazil (Dia de Ação de Graças – which yes, they stole from us but that’s totally cool – make it your own), Germany (Erntedankfest), Japan (Kinrō Kansha no Hi), etc. so like why steal our generic fall holiday when they already have one?
There’s a YouTube channel called “Your New Zealand Family” and they love America and American things and they just visited for the first time and they had a Thanksgiving yesterday at home and live streamed it! They tried all these new recipes Americans sent them and they had never tried before.
It’s just a harvest festival so not like there is anything wonderfully unique about the concept of Thanksgiving.
Does this involve a turkey dinner and family arguments?
I know that Grenada does Thanksgiving, but it only celebrates Operation Urgent Fury
So I spent a Thanksgiving in Ireland once. They didn’t particularly celebrate it but I recall going to a pub on Thanksgiving and it being Pilgrim and Indian themed.
I knew expats in Shanghai that got together for it, even those not from the US
Am I allowed to say something as a non-American, as an exception?
I don’t know anyone who celebrated it with zero ties to the US in Switzerland, Netherlands or Ireland. But I do know people who have studied in the US or did an exchange year in high school that are doing a version of it with friends. It’s less of an Americanisation thing and more a convenient reason to have a large friend group dinner though.
As an American, no. I can imagine some having curiosity because they saw it in some American movie or because some soldiers from a US military base within the country of the non-American having Thanksgiving but from a larger group, I imagine they’d have their own festivities and the like within the month of November.
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As for Christmas, I feel that could be on the British and not just the US in making it be a far reaching thing. I say that since they did have an empire and I wouldn’t be surprised if some other European countries such as France had their own Christmas celebrations or similar being exported to their former colonies that it left an impression. And technically with Jesus and Christmas, I say as both an American and a guy who leans into Christianity is that Christmas actually has nothing to do with Jesus. Even when I attended Bible School in my younger years, we were told Jesus wasn’t born in December but rather somewhere around April or March.
No, but Black Friday seems to have become a thing in many places.
No. Canada has their own Thanksgiving but that evolved in parallel to ours and arguably is as old or older than ours. Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated first.
Last year I was in Europe for work over Thanksgiving, and it was depressing as fuck to not be with my family. I went to a restaurant by myself and completely blew my meal allowance with a tasting menu and lots of wine and cocktails. My boss understood and signed off on the extra money.
Good for them. We should celebrate more holidays from other countries too.