Americans typically of Thanksgiving as a quintessentially American holiday. And it is! But the United States isn’t the only country in the world where people celebrate Thanksgiving. Here are five others — and the surprising ways that their celebrations relate back to the American tradition.
5 countries besides America where people celebrate Thanksgiving
Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, sure — but so does Grenada and one town in the Netherlands.
Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. His book on democracy, The Reactionary Spirit, was published 0n July 16. You can purchase it here.
Canada
Canadian Thanksgiving is held on a different date, partly because it commemorates a different event. American Thanksgiving celebrates the so-called “feast” (the menu was probably a little weird) shared by Pilgrims and Wampanoags in 1621. Canadian Thanksgiving, by contrast, is about the 1578 voyage of Arthur Frobisher, a British explorer who organized a meal for his crew when they (barely) made it to Canadian shores alive.
And that’s about it in terms of differences. Canadian Thanksgiving dinner, like its American equivalent, is a celebration of gluttony with most of the same classic dishes. Canadians also laze around and watch sports. It’s pretty good.
One other important thing. Canadian Thanksgiving is held on the second Monday of October, the same day the United States celebrates Columbus Day. For some Americans, then, enjoying Canadian Thanksgiving is an alternative to celebrating one of history’s most notorious genocidaires that’s better in basically every conceivable way.
Liberia
The West African nation has its origins in the United States: It became an independent country in 1847 after a group of Americans spent decades turning it into a home for former American slaves.
So it makes sense that Liberia is, according to PRI’s The World, the only other country in the world to celebrate American Thanksgiving as a national holiday. Though a relatively small number of Liberians are actually descended from former slaves, the American immigrants imported the tradition to their new home. It’s celebrated on the first Thursday of November; standard food includes mashed cassava, chicken, and green bean casserole (some things aren’t that different).
“They use the day as an occasion for going to their places of worship, Christian churches primarily, where the fresh fruits of the harvest, those things are brought to the church and auctioned following the service,” Liberian national orator Elwood Dunn told PRI. “Following that, people go their homes and, I think, do a little bit of what you do in America, feast and so forth and so on, but not — clearly not on the scale that you do it in the United States.”
One town in the Netherlands
Thanksgiving isn’t a national holiday for the Dutch. But in the city of Leiden, there’s an annual Thanksgiving celebration on the same day as the American holiday.
According to Smithsonian’s Colin Schultz, it has to do with the American Pilgrims’ travel route. Before heading to the New World, the Pilgrims took shelter from English religious persecution in Leiden. From 1609 to 1620 they called the city home, and today’s Thanksgiving celebration is held in their honor.
The celebration is a nondenominational service at Pieterskerk Church. The service is America-themed: One year, the assembled sang “God Bless America” and the US ambassador read the president’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. Afterward, according to a sheet on the US Consulate in Amsterdam’s website, “people gather briefly for coffee and cookies before they go home and cook.”
Grenada
This is kind of a weird one. On October 16, 1983, Grenada’s deputy prime minister seized power and executed the prime minister. On October 25, the United States and allied forces from nearby Caribbean nations invaded, overthrowing the deputy prime minister in a matter of weeks.
Today, Grenadians celebrate October 25 as Thanksgiving — as in, giving thanks for the American-led invasion.
The holiday, though, is not considered a big deal. According to Noga Shemer, whose UC San Diego PhD dissertation closely examined Grenadian holidays, “it seems that many Grenadians have only a vague sense of the original purpose of this official commemorative day.”
Shemer attended a Grenadian Thanksgiving celebration in 2007, held near a memorial to the Americans who died in the Grenada conflict. After speeches by American and Grenadian officials, as well as a performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” there was “an elegant reception” and also “a concert held at an outdoor park near Grand Anse beach, featuring two country-western singers and gospel acts.”
The Australian territory of Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island is, technically speaking, not a country. It’s a tiny Australian territory in the Pacific Ocean, between Australia proper and New Zealand.
According to NPR’s Ari Shapiro, the Norfolk Island tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving comes from American whalers. The island was a major point of call for the whalers, who introduced locals to foods like cornbread and pumpkin pie.
One American named Isaac Robinson tried to Americanize the island, introducing a full-fledged Thanksgiving. Shapiro interviewed Norfolk Island resident Tom Lloyd about how this all went down, and it’s absolutely worth listening to.
Norfolk Islanders celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Wednesday of November, when they eat a ridiculous array of banana dishes: mashed bananas, banana pilaf, bananas baked into bread, green bananas in cream, and dried bananas. There’s roast pork, chicken, and other local specialties on the menu as well.
It’s hard not to be envious of this tradition. How nice would it be to be sitting around in the South Pacific, eating every banana product in sight?
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