This past Thursday, Nov. 26, students congregated with their wards on and off campus to feast together in Thanksgiving celebration. For some international students, it was their first time experiencing this festive custom.
When asked about her impressions of the holiday, Jasmine Wikaira, a sophomore from Hokianga, New Zealand, majoring in music, said, “I think it’s a cool holiday. You get to eat heaps, so that’s good, and it’s cool just to give thanks for all we’ve been given.”
Emele Taivei, a freshman from Nausori, Fiji majoring in social work, said, “Well, [based on] the things I’ve heard from sacrament meeting last Sunday, I think it’s all about being grateful for things you’ve been given.”
In both New Zealand and Fiji, perhaps the most similar holiday to Thanksgiving is Christmas. “In Fiji, we only celebrate Christmas and New Years. Christmas is pretty similar [to Thanksgiving],” Taivei explained. Christmas involves gathering family members and eating lots of food, although it has more of a religious foundation than Thanksgiving.
Margaux Elysse Siasin, a freshman from the Philippines studying business, had these thoughts about Thanksgiving: “I think it’s really nice that people do that here and set a date–like Christmas when we celebrate the birth of our Savior–and this date is to say thanks. It’s a nice thing that they set a holiday for it. It’s about family and happiness.”
Siasin added, “What I really liked about Thanksgiving were the intangible things and how people are thankful and the spirit of happiness and gratitude. The tangible part that I like is the food–the turkey and ham. I didn’t like the pumpkin.”
Contrary to popular opinion, Thanksgiving is not just a American holiday. In Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated in October, on the second Monday. In fact, in 1957, the Canadian Parliament decreed: “A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October,” according to the Herald Publishing Association.
Thanksgivings are also commemorated in Grenada, Liberia, the Netherlands, and Saint Lucia. Thanksgiving is also celebrated by some people in the Philippines and is becoming more common in the United Kingdom, due to the international influence of American culture, as well as the presence of U.S. expatriate workers, according to The Guardian.