How long before we Brits celebrate Thanksgiving?

Tuesday 30th November 2010, 7:02AM GMT.

How long before we Brits celebrate Thanksgiving?

SO, farewell, Bernard Matthews, the turkey magnate, writes Peter Rhodes.

Did you notice how many people commented on the fact that he passed away, ironically, on that great  turkey-fest, Thanksgiving Day?

This is significant. Only a few years ago, we Brits neither knew nor cared about Thanksgiving. It was purely a US thing. I would not be surprised if, in the next decade or so, Thanksgiving arrives in Britain and becomes as popular as the US-style Halloween.

We love American imports and we love stuffing our faces. A British Thanksgiving would fit nicely into that quiet gap between Bonfire Night and Christmas and give us yet another excuse to pig out.

What’s more, it could have a  truly British flavour. On Thanksgiving, the Yanks celebrate their founding fathers ( a bunch of witch-burning Puritans) leaving England and arriving in America.

We Brits could give thanks that they went.


  1. 1
    Sick Boy

    Please look up irony before you use it incorrectly.

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  2. 2
    Ex pat

    No actually the US celebrates the fact that the Native Americans had to show the dim witted English how to plant crops and provide food for themselves before they all died.

    Thanksgiving was first celebrated after their first harvest. Check your facts sparky.

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  3. 3
    Father Christmas

    … and next thing you know every one will start calling me Santa and leaving me milk and cookies out on Christmas Eve. As if this country doesn’t have enough history to form its own identity.

    Some one pass the candied yams!!!

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  4. 4
    Andy

    Ex-pat: And we’ve been exporting dim witted English ever since eh!

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  5. 5
    Matt

    We should copy this U.S tradition in order to continue our rapid metamorphosis into the 51st state.

    This could be added to our previous achievements in copying the U.S by:

    Changing our language to fit in with theirs.
    Changing our political system to resemble theirs.
    Becoming more materialistic & commercial.
    Build more out-of-town shopping centres.
    Eat more fast food.
    Not having our own fashions.
    Not watching or make our own comedy programmes anymore.
    Only listening to american music.
    Only watching american films.
    Embrasing violent culture.
    Achieving the progressive sexualisation of children through entertainment & mass media.
    Becoming involved in more conflicts with other nations.
    Becoming less European & more insular to none english speaking nations.
    Studying American History at schools rather than our own.
    Eroding our own identity as a nation.

    Bring it on please.

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  6. 6
    another ex pat

    For goodness sake quit with the whining about Thanksgiving! if you don’t want to participate you don’t have to it’s not compulsory. As for the last comment about violent culture have you ever been to the chamber of horrors in London or how about the Kray boys. Also you need to worry more about morphing into Europeans and losing British identity just think about how British law is undermined constantly in Europe costing the taxpayer.

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