Late Thanksgiving: An Explanation

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. The image above features November 2019 and this year (2024); the dates are the same. This is why Thanksgiving is "late" this year, but it's not. Let's get into this.

President Washington declared Thursday, November 26, 1789, "a day of public Thanksgiving." However, that date moved around throughout the decades leading up to October 1863, when President Lincoln "proclaimed Thanksgiving to be on the last Thursday of November." There were two earlier turkey days before Lincoln's proclamation, February in 1795 and April in 1815. Wow, Easter AND Thanksgiving in the same month?!? That would've worked for turkey and ham lovers.

So thinking Thanksgiving falls on the last or late Thursday of every five years, this was not true, 2014 was normal, but November 2008 and 2013 show the later calendar. So give or take, we will experience what looks like a late Thanksgiving every five or six years.

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But the drama with which Thursday didn't end with Lincoln. In 1933 and 1939, Thanksgiving was correct, however large businesses lobbied to move the turkey back to the second to last Thursday in November. This caused states to celebrate Thanksgiving on both the third AND last Thursdays in those FDR years in the White House.

In the end, Congress intervened in 1941 to pass a bill on the last Thursday of November to officially recognize Thanksgiving as a federal holiday. Whew!

So Thanksgiving, at least up until 1941, hasn't been "late", it's just how the dates line up on the calendar. Our forefathers didn't envision Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, or Cyber Monday as huge days dedicated to Christmas shopping.