Should Poland Introduce a Thanksgiving Day?

..and spur turkey farming, in the process..

As an American I lurve Thanksgiving and miss it here (the only American holiday I really miss). But...... no, I perceive no need for its adoption here.

The point of Turkey, potatoes, cranberries, sweet potatoes and pumpkin are celebrating New World food items, what would be the point of a Polish holiday about that?

No! It is not USA it is Poland for your Thanksgiving go to USA do not meddle in our culture.

For what would the Poles be giving thanks? Most Northern European societies have some sort of harvest celebrations, festivals etc. Poland is undoubtedly no different.

Be aware though that certain national holidays, except of course for Christmas, New Year's or Easter, are scarcely "transferrable" as the cultural traditions are not historically parallel!

Other countries throughout the world may rejoice in the planting season, yet which outside the US has a specific tradition of Pilgrims giving special thanks for them being allowed by G_d (with more than a little help from the Native Americans!!) to prosper in a strange new land among a peoples so far different from their own?

Halloween is appropriately celebrated in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, especially America, while All Saints' Day in Europe including Britain, is hardly comparable. Germany has a procession in the Northern part of the country exclusively known as "Laternen laufen", while it has nothing to do with ghosts, gobblins, and scaring people.

No fking way!!! We should also get rid of that commercial farce, a parody of a real holiday called Halloween.

You must be joking:-)

Sort of reminds me of Homer Simpson, "Dammit, I'm sick of all this Chinky food, Frenchy crap! I want somethin' American, I want pizza!!"

lol

what is the traditional Polish 31st oct? I noticed candle lanterns for sale in our local Polski Sklep

Well, it's too early for Wigilia but too late for Zaduszki, so ya got me.

Nothing. The holiday is November 1 and to a muuuucccchhhh lesser extent November 2. October 31 doesn't enter into the Polish system at all.

November 1 All saints day (though celebrated like all souls day)
November 2 All souls day (barely observed)

It used to be
October 31 - eve of all saints/souls day
November 1 - all souls/saints day

Poland dumped the first because it's fun and Poles think holidays have to be dreary and religious, Americans dumped the second because the British already had

@rozumiemnic
It's actually Dziady but hardly anyone remembers or celebrates it.
As for other typically Polish celebrations, it's Andrzejki this week, Barbórka on December 4th- a big deal for miners (and mostly them unless you have a Barbara in your family or among your friends) and Mikołajki on 6th - kids love it.

All Saints' Day is November 1st and All Souls' Day is November 2nd.

oh last year i was in Czech and there were some scary monsters with Santa in the shopping mall..(where else these days?)
In Austria they have an even scarier tradition with Krampus....is there anything like that in Poland?

Is Dziady any way related to "All Souls' Day"? Just curious:-)

@rozumiemnic
Kids just get some gifts here but św. Mikołaj these days looks more like Coca Cola Santa Claus than the traditional image of St Nicholas.

Dads, uncles etc dressed as św. Mikołaj looked scary, too ;)

Mikolaj has a vague equivalent figure in Austria known as Krampus, though the latter is supposed to be a sort bad guy character, Mikolaj isn't:-)

lol Krampus is dreadful, wtf is wrong with Austrian parents?
Would you take your small children out for this?

youtu.be/mojrfw7SJ14

Thanksgiving is wholly an Amerkin thing, no idea why we would do this in Europe..

THANK YOU! I love thanksgiving but it's a holiday that absolutely does not need to be sold to Europe.


Christmas used to be a loud rowdy dangerous holiday the whole idea of it as quiet time with family was the upper classes trying to keep the lower classes in check.


I'm prepared to defend American Santa Claus (not created by Coca Cola that's Americanophobic propaganda) but again I see no reason for Poland to adopt him any more than Poland should have adopted djad mroz...

interesting!!
right that is it I am going to get raucous this Christmas...

The idea of giving thanks is universal! The American festival of English Puritans giving thanks and celebrating with a big meal though, IS distinctively American, no argument there:-) For that reason in certain European countries such as Germany, they make a distinction between what they call "Erntedankfeier" , a generically fall festival celebrating the onset of harvest with no references to anything American, of course, vs. "Danksagungsfest" which conjures up images of those folks in Pilgrim attire seated soberly around a large food-laden wooden table with Massasoit, the Native American chieftan, sitting towards the end. However, most simply prefer the American "Thanksgiving", only to make it easier:-)

No. It was an old English custom (occasionally in the case of good harvests not annualy). Early in US history the celts (Scots and Irish) were decidedly not on board with the idea. Even after it became a federal holiday it wasn't universally celebrated. That took many, many years.

@mafketis
I don't really mind American Santa Claus but I still remember St Nicholas from my kindergarten days - with a tall hat and a crosier. Kids nowadays probably wouldn't know it's Mikołaj.

We were told we would get a rozga (not sure how to translate that but it's a sort of twig for beating naughty kids ;)) if we weren't good.

As for Thanksgiving, isn't it related to the American history and tradition? What's the point of introducing it in Poland?

Maybe switch? (old translation) in the US it was a lump of coal...


Exactly! none! It's a great American holiday, bu there's no need for Poland (or anywhere in Europe) to celebrate it.

Only for commercial reasons, I'm afraid.

What about Americans in Poland? Do you celebrate it?

That's what I would've said, or possibly rod. I've read about this somewhere else on this forum, I think it was originally a twig made from birch.


I bet they probably do, but I doubt it would be that easy to get hold of Turkey for the Thanksgiving dinner. Even in the UK, Turkey is only usually on sale at Xmas and Easter.

there used to be, nothing like the current Austrian terror, but there is the old village traditions of kolędowanie and herody which include devil figures...

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kol%C4%99dowanie
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herody
ckpir.zielonki.pl/images/stories/zdjecia/wwwHerody_zima.jpg