Thanksgiving - What's It All About?

We're fast approaching holiday season in the US, with offices and warehouses closed for the Thanksgiving Federal Holiday this Thursday and many remaining closed on Friday too.

Thanksgiving is celebrated annually on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States, as friends and family gather for the biggest holiday of the year, with most proclaiming it as bigger than Christmas.

Thanksgiving's origins date back to 1621 when the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth, Massachusetts, shared a harvest feast with the native Wampanoag people.

The celebration was traditionally held to say thanks for the Autumn harvest but has become a means of giving thanks for family, friends, food, health and other positivities. These days the holiday is usually accompanied by a large turkey dinner, American football and parades.

Black Friday is a much more recent phenomenon. In the 1950's Philadelphia Police described the chaos on the day that followed Thanksgiving as Black Friday, due to the hordes of shoppers that entered the city. Philly police were never allowed the day off and had to work extended shifts to cope with the crowds and traffic.

It wasn't until the late 1980's that the term spread throughout the nation when retailers reinvented Black Friday with more positive connotations and as a nationwide discount day. Since then, the day has spread globally around the world to become one of the biggest retail days on the shopping calendar, if not THE biggest.

‍