Why is Thanksgiving Always Celebrated on a Thursday?

The thanksgiving work week is the best work week in my opinion. Think about it, you are always guaranteed a 4 day weekend. Christmas would be the second best, but sometimes Christmas falls in the middle of the week so without taking any PTO days, you might have just two random days off in the middle of the week.

A famed publisher had a similar thinking to mine though writing to President Herbert Hoover in 1929, asking him to move the holiday to Friday so we all get a three-day weekend for “thanksgiving, rest, pleasure and recreation” – amen, F.B. Haviland.

The desire for a long weekend is not necessarily the reason why Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. And it definitely also isn't the same day the Puritans had their big feast with the natives either. This we do know. I did some digging to find out exactly why Thanksgiving is always on Thursday.

It was actually President Abraham Lincoln who first proclaimed that Thanksgiving should be celebrated in the first place. He was the one who set the holiday to fall on the last Thursday in November.

For nearly eight decades this was how things were. Then in the 1930s, retailers began to voice concern when Novembers with five Thursdays rolled around. They believed this affected consumer spending because it didn’t leave enough shopping time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt agreed and believed it would in fact be in the best interest of the economy to move the holiday. Many were opposed to moving the holiday though so between the years of 1939 and 1941, different states celebrated Thanksgiving on different dates.

Ultimately Congress passed a bill in December of 1941 establishing Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November for good.

And there is your history lesson of the day!