Why Doesn't Thanksgiving Have A Mythos

[ProfessorDetective]

We could just call Wednesday and Enid the new holiday icons. Canonically killed the racist Puritan they'd be replacing, even.

A true meeting of disparate peoples: Preps and Goths joining forces against the Fundies. I like it!

[TGLS]

When compared to it's sister Holidays Thanksgiving is kind of a blank Holiday. I mean Halloween is the night of witches, ghouls, goblins and ghosts, when the dead walk among us for one night and seek to remind the living that we will join them sooner or later. By contrast Christmas is the time of joy and mirlces, when old Saint Nick goes from house to house to deliver presents to all the children and when Christ himself was born.

Well I mean you gotta look at the origins of Christmas and Halloween. Both Christmas and Halloween (or All Hallows Eve) have their origins in Christianity. Both Christmas and Halloween are relatively foreign to the United States, only becoming a big thing once non-Anglo immigration picked up. Time moved on, and holiday branched out into different religious traditions, and so the religious elements were steadily erased.

Thanksgiving doesn't have any of that. The holiday was invented from whole cloth in the 19th century.
It is wholly American and not associated with another religious/cultural groups. There's almost no religious elements that need to be erased (discounting the earlier "go to church and pray for things you're thankful for", but that was effectively erased on inception). The pilgrim story has been on the way out for a while now; what comes next is probably really up in the air.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

My first idea is heavily leaning into the "harvest festival" angle. Your Saint Nick/Jack o' Lantern equivalent could be a fertility goddess, bringing us nature's bounty to sure up our supplies for the long winter ahead. The traditional feast is in her honor, thanking her for the help. Gives it a bit of neo-pagan styling, to match Samhain and Yuel's pre-Christian roots.

I'm imagining a witch, but a proper one. Not the "spooky" Oz-rejects we have for Halloween. More Mother than Crone. Maybe "druid" would be the better term? I ain't sure. My knowledge here is very... Pop Cultural...

Kind of redundant when all the neopagan witches and druids just celebrated Samhain three weeks ago.

Shame we can't shift the dates around. Move Thanksgiving/Harvest Day/whatever to November 30 and blend Christmas/Yuel into New Year's. Mid-Autum, End-of-Autum/Start-of-Winter, Mid-Winter. Gives everything an extra week-ish to breath.

Look at this jokester, trying to recreate Hogswatch.

[clearspira]

The Mayflower didn't bring thanks. It brought racist genocide. Giving Thanksgiving a ''theme'' for corporations to exploit is even more insulting to their memory than forgetting the truth. This is not anti-American btw, we all need to look at our imperialist and colonial pasts and look at it for what it was sometimes. I for example only learned what sort of man Churchill was after the George Floyd riots, we certainly didn't learn it in school.

[ProfessorDetective]

My first idea is heavily leaning into the "harvest festival" angle. Your Saint Nick/Jack o' Lantern equivalent could be a fertility goddess, bringing us nature's bounty to sure up our supplies for the long winter ahead. The traditional feast is in her honor, thanking her for the help. Gives it a bit of neo-pagan styling, to match Samhain and Yuel's pre-Christian roots.

I'm imagining a witch, but a proper one. Not the "spooky" Oz-rejects we have for Halloween. More Mother than Crone. Maybe "druid" would be the better term? I ain't sure. My knowledge here is very... Pop Cultural...

Kind of redundant when all the neopagan witches and druids just celebrated Samhain three weeks ago.

Shame we can't shift the dates around. Move Thanksgiving/Harvest Day/whatever to November 30 and blend Christmas/Yuel into New Year's. Mid-Autum, End-of-Autum/Start-of-Winter, Mid-Winter. Gives everything an extra week-ish to breath.

Look at this jokester, trying to recreate Hogswatch.

First the boots thing and now this. Look, I haven't read Pratchett's work in any real depth. It's parallel evolution, NOT plagiarism, I swear.

[hammerofglass]

The Mayflower didn't bring thanks. It brought racist genocide. Giving Thanksgiving a ''theme'' for corporations to exploit is even more insulting to their memory than forgetting the truth. This is not anti-American btw, we all need to look at our imperialist and colonial pasts and look at it for what it was sometimes. I for example only learned what sort of man Churchill was after the George Floyd riots, we certainly didn't learn it in school.

Pretty sure we were all taking that as read but loving your energy here.

[Winter]

My first idea is heavily leaning into the "harvest festival" angle. Your Saint Nick/Jack o' Lantern equivalent could be a fertility goddess, bringing us nature's bounty to sure up our supplies for the long winter ahead. The traditional feast is in her honor, thanking her for the help. Gives it a bit of neo-pagan styling, to match Samhain and Yuel's pre-Christian roots.

I'm imagining a witch, but a proper one. Not the "spooky" Oz-rejects we have for Halloween. More Mother than Crone. Maybe "druid" would be the better term? I ain't sure. My knowledge here is very... Pop Cultural...

Hm, I like that one and it matches the design I would want for the character since I would also have her to have the colors of Fall to match the season. It also lends itself to different stories like what we get with Santa Claus.

Santa has SOOOO Many origin stories that try to explain how he works. Oh is he able to visit every house around the world in one night? How can his reindeer fly? Why the red suit? Why does he love children so much? Oh does he get up and down the chimney? What if you don't have a chimney? Who are his elves? How do your letters reach him?

I like your idea, mind if I borrow it?

Well I mean you gotta look at the origins of Christmas and Halloween. Both Christmas and Halloween (or All Hallows Eve) have their origins in Christianity. Both Christmas and Halloween are relatively foreign to the United States, only becoming a big thing once non-Anglo immigration picked up. Time moved on, and holiday branched out into different religious traditions, and so the religious elements were steadily erased.

Thanksgiving doesn't have any of that. The holiday was invented from whole cloth in the 19th century.
It is wholly American and not associated with another religious/cultural groups. There's almost no religious elements that need to be erased (discounting the earlier "go to church and pray for things you're thankful for", but that was effectively erased on inception). The pilgrim story has been on the way out for a while now; what comes next is probably really up in the air.

True enough but this idea of mine born as a result of a new bits of lore can completely change how we see an entire Holiday. Take Santa Claus for example... again... while he is based on Saint Nicholas the character of Santa Claus was only introduced around 250 years ago, around the 1700's I think, and didn't wear his iconic red outfit until the 1800's. Or to look at arguably the most iconic character from the Santa Claus lore besides the big man himself, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, didn't exist until 1939 as a marketing gimmick.

We can, and have, changed major parts of the Holidays so why not try to give Thanksgiving something like that. Santa and the Jack O' Lantern can work in any culture as while they are tired to certain religions they're not really about those religions. JOL will scare anyone and Santa loves all children so why not create a character that can match them?

[ProfessorDetective]

My first idea is heavily leaning into the "harvest festival" angle. Your Saint Nick/Jack o' Lantern equivalent could be a fertility goddess, bringing us nature's bounty to sure up our supplies for the long winter ahead. The traditional feast is in her honor, thanking her for the help. Gives it a bit of neo-pagan styling, to match Samhain and Yuel's pre-Christian roots.

I'm imagining a witch, but a proper one. Not the "spooky" Oz-rejects we have for Halloween. More Mother than Crone. Maybe "druid" would be the better term? I ain't sure. My knowledge here is very... Pop Cultural...

Hm, I like that one and it matches the design I would want for the character since I would also have her to have the colors of Fall to match the season. It also lends itself to different stories like what we get with Santa Claus.

Santa has SOOOO Many origin stories that try to explain how he works. Oh is he able to visit every house around the world in one night? How can his reindeer fly? Why the red suit? Why does he love children so much? Oh does he get up and down the chimney? What if you don't have a chimney? Who are his elves? How do your letters reach him?

I like your idea, mind if I borrow it?

Feel free.

[McAvoy]

My thoughts is this, there is nothing Pagan to it. Think about Halloween, Christmas and Easter. Christmas is practically pagan that got taken over with Christianity even though Jesus's birth was definitely not December 25th. Easter Bunny has nothing to with Jesus either.

At the same time Thanksgiving is an American holiday. Think about what mythos we have for Memorial Day, Labor Day or 4th of July. Martin Luther King?

There is more mythos in Valentines Day and St Patrick's Day and no one gets a day off from that. St Patrick's Day not everyone in the US actually celebrates that to begin with unless you count those who use it as an excuse to get drunk.

Thanksgiving also tends to blend in with Halloween as far as the Fall decorations are concerned. As in you can keep your pumpkins out for Thanksgiving, your dried out stalks of corn, fake fall leaves, bails of hay etc. Thanksgiving is done and then you start decorating for winter.

At best Thanskgiving affects the world due to Black Friday deals.

I think our mythos for Thanksgiving is the sitcoms and football. As a football fan I get to watch the Lions lose and the Cowboys play. Hell as of this year, the Jets are trying to take over Black Friday as a Jets gameday.

There is your mythos. Football.