Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving brings together traditions of gratitude, harvest celebration and family gatherings. The United States observes it on the fourth Thursday of November and Canada on the second Monday of October. The national holidays developed through civic decisions, alongside religious observances ^4,6.

Biblical passages about gratitude provide a religious connection to the later holiday: the Torah's thanksgiving offering, the todah of Leviticus 7:12-15, brought in gratitude and eaten the same day; the command to bless God for the good land after eating and being satisfied (Deuteronomy 8:10); the psalm whose Hebrew title names it a psalm of thanksgiving (Psalm 100, JPS 1917), which the churches read as Psalm 100; and, in the New Testament, the man who returned to give thanks after Jesus healed ten people with leprosy (Luke 17:11-19) and Paul's instruction to give thanks in every circumstance (1 Thessalonians 5:18). These passages help explain Christian thanksgiving, but do not establish the modern national holiday.

The holiday has carried different meanings at different times. Lincoln's 1863 proclamation combined gratitude for the harvest with concern for those bereaved by the Civil War ⁵. At Plymouth in 1621, Edward Winslow described a three-day harvest celebration attended by Massasoit and approximately ninety Wampanoag men ². Today, religious services, family gatherings and secular celebrations are among its observances ¹.

The modern holiday developed from earlier harvest celebrations and religious days of thanksgiving. In the United States, presidential proclamations and later federal legislation established the national observance ^3,4,5. Canada follows a separate calendar ⁶.

The Bible describes thanksgiving and several harvest observances. Exodus 23:16 names both the Feast of Harvest and the Feast of Ingathering. Israel was to keep the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after gathering the produce of the threshing floor and the winepress, rejoicing before God because he had blessed the harvest (Deuteronomy 16:13-15); that feast is Sukkot, which Jews still keep in the autumn. The psalms call the congregation to enter God's gates with thanksgiving (Psalm 100:4-5) and praise him for crowning the year with bounty (Psalm 65:9-13). Paul tells the churches to be thankful (Colossians 3:15-17) and to present their requests with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6). These passages concern worship and gratitude rather than the date of the later civic holiday.

The English Puritans kept days of thanksgiving and days of fasting as religious observances called for particular mercies, and in New England the autumn thanksgivings, kept from early November to mid-December, functioned for some almost as a Calvinist alternative to Christmas ¹. The first known civil day of thanksgiving in that tradition was declared at Plymouth Colony in 1623, two years after the harvest feast of 1621 ¹. The feast itself is known from two surviving accounts: Edward Winslow wrote that after the harvest was gathered the governor sent four men fowling "that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together", and that "many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men" were entertained and feasted for three days; William Bradford recorded the small harvest, the store of fowl and the wild turkeys ². Virginia has an earlier claim: instructions dated 4 September 1619 required the settlers of Berkeley Hundred to keep the day of their arrival each year as a day of thanksgiving to God ^3,1.

The national day came by proclamation. On 3 October 1789, at the request of both houses of the first Congress, George Washington assigned Thursday 26 November 1789 as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, the first under the new Constitution ^3,4. Later presidents proclaimed such days irregularly. Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey's Lady's Book, campaigned for a fixed national day and wrote to several presidents ¹, and on 3 October 1863 Lincoln, in a proclamation drafted by his Secretary of State William Seward, invited the country to keep the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving and praise; the day has been kept every year since ^5,4.

The date was fixed by law after a quarrel. In 1939 the last Thursday of November fell on the last day of the month, and Franklin Roosevelt moved the holiday a week earlier to lengthen the Christmas shopping season; thirty-two states followed him, sixteen refused, and for two years the country kept two Thanksgivings ⁴. Congress ended it: the House passed a resolution for the last Thursday on 6 October 1941, the Senate amended it to the fourth Thursday, and Roosevelt signed it on 26 December 1941 ⁴. Canada's history includes a period from 1921 to 1931 when Thanksgiving and Armistice Day shared a date ¹⁸. Its present observance falls on the second Monday of October ⁶.

Who keeps it A civil holiday in the United States and Canada, also marked by some churches with thanksgiving services. The displayed date is for the United States; Canada observes the second Monday of October.

A shared meal is a familiar part of Thanksgiving. Some families say grace, and some churches hold services on the day or the evening before. Others observe it without a religious service ¹.

In the United States the Catholic Church lists Thanksgiving Day in the proper calendar for the country's dioceses, and its liturgical calendar directs that on the day any readings may be taken from the Mass "In Thanksgiving to God" ⁷. A Thanksgiving Day selection includes the blessing of the God of all in Sirach 50:22-24, Paul's thanks for the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 1:3-9, and the ten lepers in Luke 17:11-19 ¹⁹. Sirach is in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles; Anglican editions that include the Apocrypha place it there, and most Protestant Bibles and the Jewish Tanakh do not carry it, so the link here is to the World English Bible's Catholic edition. The same three verses are the source of the hymn "Now thank we all our God", written in German by the Lutheran pastor Martin Rinkart about 1636 and used as a Christian hymn of thanksgiving ¹³.

The Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer gives Thanksgiving Day its own collect, giving thanks "for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them" and asking that the church be a faithful steward of that bounty "for the relief of all who are in need" ⁸. Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ and other congregations that follow the Revised Common Lectionary have a set of readings for the day in each year of its cycle: in 2026, Deuteronomy 8:7-18, Psalm 65, 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 and Luke 17:11-19; in 2027, Joel 2:21-27, Psalm 126, 1 Timothy 2:1-7 and Matthew 6:25-33 ^9,10. The lectionary lists a Canadian Thanksgiving Day in October with the same readings ⁹.

Churches need not follow a shared lectionary to hold a Thanksgiving service. Local observances can include prayer, hymns and a meal. The form of observance depends on the congregation; a denomination's name alone does not establish whether it keeps the day ¹.

Other countries keep a church harvest thanksgiving rather than a national day. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland Erntedankfest is kept by Catholic and Protestant congregations with the church decorated with produce and a harvest crown; the German Catholic bishops' conference set the first Sunday of October as its date in 1972 without making it obligatory, and the Protestant churches kept it earlier on the Sunday after Michaelmas ¹². The English harvest festival began when the Rev. Robert Hawker invited his parishioners at Morwenstow in Cornwall to a special thanksgiving service in 1843; the Victorian hymns "We plough the fields and scatter" and "Come, ye thankful people, come" spread the idea, and churches are still decorated with baskets of fruit and food in September or October ¹¹.

Since 1970, Indigenous people and their allies have gathered on Cole's Hill in Plymouth for the National Day of Mourning on US Thanksgiving. Its organizers, United American Indians of New England, describe it as a time to remember Indigenous ancestors, honour Native resilience, and protest land dispossession, racism and continuing oppression ¹⁶. This observance is an important part of Thanksgiving's contemporary history; it does not represent a single view held by every Indigenous person.

Thanksgiving readings often focus on gratitude, the harvest and generosity. The selections below show how particular churches and lectionaries connect those themes with the holiday.

The Revised Common Lectionary's Thanksgiving Day set for 2026, Year A, is Deuteronomy 8:7-18, the good land and the warning not to forget who gave it; Psalm 65, which crowns the year with bounty; 2 Corinthians 9:6-15, on generous giving that overflows in thanksgiving to God; and Luke 17:11-19, the ten lepers healed and the one, a Samaritan, who returned ⁹. For 2027, Year B, the set is Joel 2:21-27, Psalm 126, 1 Timothy 2:1-7 and Matthew 6:25-33, on not worrying about food and clothing ¹⁰.

The Catholic Mass in Thanksgiving to God offers a choice of readings, and one Thanksgiving Day selection includes Sirach 50:22-24, 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 and Luke 17:11-19 ^7,19. The Book of Common Prayer's own table pairs its collect with Deuteronomy 8, Psalm 65, James 1:17-27 and Matthew 6:25-33, the same passages the lectionaries draw on ¹⁷. The links here are for study; a church's own lectionary is the authority for its service.

In brief Mass for Thanksgiving Day: Sirach 50:22-24 or Deuteronomy 8:7-18; 1 Corinthians 1:3-9; Luke 17:11-19.

Jewish readers and Thanksgiving

Jewish communities have their own traditions of gratitude, including Sukkot and prayers of thanksgiving. Some American Jews also celebrate the national holiday, while others do not; religious views about participation differ ^14,15.

The Torah's harvest feast is Deuteronomy 16:13-15: seven days of rejoicing after the produce of the threshing floor and the winepress is gathered, because God has blessed the harvest. Jews keep it as Sukkot, eating in a temporary hut in the weeks before or after the Canadian Thanksgiving and a month or more before the American one. The thanksgiving offering of Leviticus 7:12-15, JPS 1917, the todah, and the psalm titled for it, Psalm 100, are part of Jewish scripture and worship, as well as texts read by Christians.

My Jewish Learning describes Thanksgiving as an opportunity for some American Jews to gather with family and express both Jewish and American identities. It also discusses objections to adopting a non-Jewish holiday. These are varied experiences, not a universal Jewish practice ¹⁴.

Rabbinic discussion asks whether Thanksgiving is a civic occasion or a religious custom Jews should not adopt. Rabbi Jack Abramowitz's overview for the Orthodox Union contrasts authorities who permitted commemoration, including Rabbis Moshe Feinstein and Joseph Soloveitchik, with Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner's opposition ¹⁵. This summarizes a disagreement; it is not a religious ruling for individual readers.

In the United States Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November: 26 November in 2026 and 25 November in 2027. In Canada it is the second Monday of October: 12 October in 2026 and 11 October in 2027.

The American rule is the joint resolution Roosevelt signed on 26 December 1941, which chose the fourth Thursday rather than the last so that a November with five Thursdays would not push the day to the 30th ⁴. Before that the day followed the president's annual proclamation, on the last Thursday of November from Lincoln's proclamation of 1863 onward ^5,4.

Canada observes Thanksgiving on the second Monday of October ⁶. Church harvest thanksgivings elsewhere have their own local calendars, including autumn observances in Germany and England ^12,11. The table below gives the US and Canadian dates.