Happy Thanksgiving to all our customers in the United States! J-List is extremely thankful for your warm support, and the support of everyone around the world, over the past year. We look forward to bringing you many fun products and blog posts in the future! Today, let’s find out if they have Thanksgiving in Japan!
The History of Thanksgiving in Japan
Thanksgiving is a very American holiday. It’s a day to gather family members from around the country and enjoy a big meal together after giving thanks for all the good things in our lives. The tradition dates back to the Pilgrims in 1621 but didn’t become official until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of giving thanks in 1863.
Since Thanksgiving is so uniquely American, there’s nothing like it in Japan, right? Well, you’d be surprised. Today is actually Labor Thanksgiving Day, a day for giving thanks to the hardworking people who build our roads and so on. It just happens to fall on the same day as American Thanksgiving this year, so today is a holiday in Japan, too.
Here’s how this holiday came to be. Since ancient times, there was a harvest festival named Niiname no Matsuri held at the end of fall, with Shinto rites performed to thank the kami gods for a successful harvest. When Japan adopted the Western calendar as part of its modernization process in the Meiji Era, it fixed the date of this festival to November 23, and it became a national holiday.
When the Allied forces occupied Japan, one of their goals was to eliminate state-sponsored Shinto because of its association with the war. GHQ suggested changing the Niiname festival to Thanksgiving, as it was near to the American holiday. Because Japan didn’t have the same traditions in place, Japanese lawmakers instead went with Labor Thanksgiving Day, a day to thank everyone who works hard to make the things we use every day.
What do Americans in Japan Do on Thanksgiving?
One of the first things you learn about living outside of the USA is that familiar holidays aren’t part of the local scenery, which takes some getting used to. Turkeys are extremely hard to come by in Japan. Supermarkets that focus on imported foods have them, but since almost no Japanese homes have proper ovens, cooking them would be a major challenge. You can’t exactly cook a Butterball turkey in a toaster oven or microwave.
But there are decent stand-ins. There’s always KFC, if we want to eat something close to a Thanksgiving turkey. J-List is fortunate to be near a Costco, so we’ve got all kinds of options that people in other parts of Japan wouldn’t have access to. When I finish this post, I’m headed over there to buy a pumpkin pie. I’m getting there early because I know a lot of other foreigners in Japan will have the same idea and I don’t want them to sell out.
This year is a special one for our family, since my son and his wife recently moved from Tokyo to Gunma Prefecture, building a house nearby. This means we can have something like a proper Thanksgiving celebration with family…although we’re bumping it to Sunday for convenience. Instead of turkey, we’re getting two spit-roasted chickens from a nearby Peruvian restaurant, which is close enough for us. It’ll be great.
Thanks for reading this blog post about Thanksgiving in Japan. If you’re in the United States, please have an awesome special day of relaxing with family and friends. And be sure to check out all the great items we’ve posted for you during our Black Friday Cyber Sale!
Make sure to follow J-List on these platforms!
- Twitter/X, where Peter posts anime booba for you
- Facebook, where we share memes and discuss anime
- Instagram, where you can look at sterilized anime memes, because it’s Instagram
- Discord, if you want to chat with other J-List customers of culture
- Finally, check out J-List’s short video blogs on YouTube or TikTok!
J-List’s Black Friday Cyber Sale is going on, now. This year we’re giving you 15% off site-wide purchases using code CYBER23. There’s no purchase minimum, but you’re going to want to load up your cart with awesome stress-relief products for guys, personal lotion, manga and doujinshi, in-stock anime figures, 2024 calendars, and more! The sale ends November 28th!
