Ways of Celebrating

Family, Charity, Military, Sport and Commerce

While the main icons of Thanksgiving celebration in our culture involve a family gathered around the dinner table, this holiday has been observed in multiple ways throughout its history. Some of these, past, present, or both, have included hunting, playing or watching football, raucous public merry-making in some communities, carrying out acts of charity or community service, gathering in communal settings such as homeless shelters, and many more. This section of the site will offer diverse textual, visual, and other materials for exploring the varied ways Thanksgiving has been observed and the light that sheds on our history and culture.

This Web site is a work in progress. Please revisit often as we continue to build it with new materials. We also welcome your suggestions or contributions of material; to send us an email, click here; or phone 434 924-3296.

"Big Dinners at the Front: Big Quantities of Turkey Disappear 'Somewhere in France'," New York Times (1917).

For our armed forces, a Thanksgiving meal--or the best attempt at one under the conditions--has for over a century represented an important symbolic connection to home, to family and nation. The story excerpted below, which originally appeared on Nov. 30, 1917, relates one such Thanksgiving meal from World War I.

PARIS, Nov. 29--American soldiers stationed in Paris and the suburbs, as well as those at training camps and bases, sat down today at noon to an old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner. Specially detailed officers had been scouring the country for the last two weeks buying up all available turkeys, which averaged twelve pounds in weight.

The dinner menu for the men stationed in Paris included soup, turkey, potatoes, turnips, peas, white bread, butter, apple and peach pie, apples, raisins, nuts, figs, dates, and coffee. Individual turkey portions ranged from a pound and a quarter to a pound and a half.

. . . While the men did not enjoy a holiday today, reveille was omitted and other rules were relaxed for the day.

"Pushing Holiday Trade: Displays by the Stores Continually Made More Elaborate," New York Times (1926).

Department-store parades became a feature of Thanksgiving celebration in the 1920s; Macy's parade in New York City, launched in 1924, would come to be the most famous, but Gimbel's parade in Philadelphia appears to be the earliest, beginning in 1920. The New York Times story excerpted below shows that the linking of Thanksgiving Day with the holiday shopping season was well underway in that decade. The full story appeared on Nov. 14, 1926.

From present indications, more elaborate means than ever before will be taken by retail stores throughout the country to signalize the "official" opening of the Christmas holiday selling period. Not only will the undertakings be more lavish and expensive on the part of stores which have carried them on in the last couple of years, but the number of stores featuring them is growing larger every year . . .

One of the outstanding things that will be done by several stores is the holding of a gigantic parade on Thanksgiving Day, announcing the arrival of Santa Claus and all his fairy-land and story-book cohorts. In one case, it was said yesterday, a Middle West store is arranging to have Santa come by airplane to a landing place not far from the store. He will be met by a reception committee and a parade will escort him to the store, which proclaims itself his headquarters. . . .

"Object to Parade on Thanksgiving Day: Patriotic Societies Protest Macy's Annual Event as Interference with Services," New York Times (1926).

While the department-store parades for Thanksgiving were still new, there was some debate about them. The story excerpted below details one such controversy. The full story appeared on Nov. 4, 1926.

At a meeting of the Allied Patriotic Societies yesterday afternoon at the Army and Navy Club, resolutions were unanimously adopted that the association protest to the R. H. Macy Company against the store's holding its annual parade Thanksgiving morning, on the group that it would interfere with Thanksgiving Day worship. . . .

Percy Strauss of the Macy firm . . . attended the meeting. He said that the parade was an annual event, designed to please the children, and to symbolize the coming of Christmas. He said that the word Macy was used once in the course of the parade, and that there was no blatant advertising. He also said that Thanksgiving morning was the only time when the children would be free to watch and the traffic light enough to permit the parade's passing. It would be over, he thought, in ample time to permit churchgoing.

Norman Bel Geddes, the theatrical designer, then showed plans of the parade which he is designing. Hugh White Adams, a member of the societies, said that there was growing up in America "an attempt to vilify the Pilgrim fathers," and that Thanksgiving Day was the suitable day for worshiping their memory . . .

"President Attends Thanksgiving Mass: Present at Pan-American Service in Washington--Preacher Appeals for Peace," New York Times (1910).

Thanksgiving Day has given rise to a great many different kinds of celebrations and observances. O ne of the lesser-known was begun early in the 20th century, meant to bolster US influence in, and the unity of, the Americas. The story excerpted below covers the 1910 Pan-American Thanksgiving Mass. The full story originally ran on November 25, 1910.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24.--The President and Mrs. Taft, with the Secretary of State and the entire delegation from the Latin-American nations, attended the second annual Pan-American Thanksgiving service at St. Patrick's Church this morning.

The mass was celebrated in the presence of Cardinal Gibbons and the apostolic delgate to the United States, Archbishop Falconio. The church was decorated with the flags of the various nations of the western hemisphere. The ministers of the mass were clad in new vestments of gold, and the Cardinal's pages wore costumes of pages of Louis XIV.

The sermon was preached by the Rev. Charles Warren Currier. He called upon the world to take note that this service demonstrated that the nations of the western hemisphere honored God. He reviewed the advance of civilizastion in the Americas, and, looking to the future, . . . urged the nations to cease shedding their brothers' blood in war. . . .