Thread: Christmas in Russia

Originally Posted by Doomer

Despite the fact that Canada has it
US has Black Friday (and Cyber Monday) it's similar to Boxing Day but it's not a day off

Actually, "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving, which is always the 4th Thursday in November) is almost universally a school holiday in the US, so far as I know. And although it's not a federal holiday, some state and city governments close for Black Friday. The practical reason for closing is that so many people travel (sometimes long distances) to visit their families on Thanksgiving. So closing on Friday allows people more time to return home, and arguably reduces highway accidents from people driving late at night and half-drunk immediately after Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.

Originally Posted by Doomer

BTW does anybody know why Thanksgiving in Canada is not the same day as in US?

Well, Thanksgiving has always symbolically been a "harvest holiday" that marks the ending of autumn and the arrival of winter. Since Canada is north of the US, their harvest comes earlier, so it makes sense that Canada would celebrate Thanksgiving before the US. (In Canada, it's the 2nd Monday in Oct -- thus almost a month-and-a-half earlier than in America.)

According to Wikipedia, US Thanksgiving as an "official holiday" began in 1963, when Lincoln proclaimed a day of thanks to improve the national morale during the Civil War. Originally, Thanksgiving was on 26 November, but later it was tied to the 4th Thursday, and not to a specific date.

On the other hand, Canadian Thanksgiving only began in 1957 -- apparently, Canada thought that US Thanksgiving was generally a good idea in practical terms (it's a quasi-religious holiday that is not linked with a specific faith; it helps the economy a bit by encouraging consumers to spend money on a big dinner and on travel; it provides an excuse for people to visit with the families).

By the way, I generally agree with Hanna's point about the importance of preserving local traditions and resisting a homogeneous global culture that's disproportionately Americanized.

However, one alternative argument for Hanna to think about is that the beloved Christmas tree or ёлочка was a purely localized Bavarian custom until the time of Martin Luther's Reformation. Luther began encouraging German-speaking Protestants outside of the Bavaria region to put up Christmas trees as an alternative to the traditional crèche (aka "Nativity scene"). He considered the Nativity scenes to be "too Roman Catholic", and more generally, a possible temptation to idol-worship because human figurines were used.

But even after Luther, the Christmas tree did not become popular outside of Germany until Queen Victoria began putting up decorated trees in honor of Prince Albert's Bavarian origins. Of course, once the royal court started doing it, Christmas trees almost instantly became fashionable in British high society, both among the aristocracy and among wealthy commoners.

From there, the custom was adopted by royalty and aristocracy in other parts of Europe (including the Romanovs in Russia), and also by "blue-blooded" American millionaires of the Victorian age, who loved to imitate the British aristocracy. And eventually, the Christmas tree tradition spread downward through the middle classes in many Christian countries.

(And nowadays, in spite of the "anti-Papist" intentions of Martin Luther, Christmas trees are certainly universal among Roman Catholics in the Anglo-American world, while Nativity scenes are widely popular among Protestants -- including Lutherans!)

So, if you complain about Coca-Cola and McDonald's as "cultural imperialism", but you put up a ёлочка in your home, you're not being totally consistent from a historical point of view.