Thanksgiving and related holidays in your nation

by **Charlotte Ryberg** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:33 am

How are Thanksgiving, Black Friday and other related days observed in your country?

Minoa does not have it as a official holiday, but it is more related to the Local and Ancient Greek traditions with harvest. However, the government takes a dim view on Black Friday (according to NSindex) because before the year 2034, Black Friday often resulted in major riots: today, retailers cannot start or end a promotion six days before Black Friday and six days afterwards, online or offline.

The law means that any retailer wishing to run promotions on Black Friday itself would have to start them at least seven days early and then run for at least 15 days, thereby reducing the risk of crowd problems at their stores. It's pretty much like what Walmart is doing: extending it to five days (according to RetailWire).

by **Olwe** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:42 am

As a secular country, Olwe has never had anything like Thanksgiving... thanking gods for anything at all kind of goes against everything we stand for. Plus, the traditional Thanksgiving food is way too bland for us.

As for Black Friday, we take a similar stance to Minoa... it's a necessary evil, but tightly regulated and forced to expand beyond just the one day. If a store has riots, stampedes or other similar issues, they are permanently shut down without hesitation or question, and if the problem occurred because the store was understocked on a big-ticket item then the owners of the store are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for reckless endangerment (or felony murder, if someone died).

by **Soviet Paraguay** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 11:58 am

As an authoritarian communist republic, we have outlawed both.

by **Kirav** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:02 pm

There are a number of ethnic and regional harvest festivals taking place in the autumn, many of which are official state holidays, but none are official holidays on the national level. The Agrarian cadre in the Federal Cambrium has proposed an official national harvest festival numerous times, but it has yet to move out of committee.

In order to have a Black Friday, Kiravians would first have to adopt the notion of a "Friday", as the Kiravian civil calendar uses an eight-day week. Gift-giving at Christmas is a low-key affair in Kiravia, and usually doesn't go beyond small gifts being given to children by visiting relatives or sentimental gifts exchanged by romantic partners. However, Christmas being a primarily religious and culinary holiday, good deals on poultry, fish, and cake mixes start to appear in the preceeding two weeks.

by **Gandoor** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 12:39 pm

In Gandoor, we don't have Thanksgiving or any equivalent holiday for our society. In addition, while stores will have sales in preparation for Christmas, we don't really have a "Black Friday" because sales usually run from mid-November until a few days before Christmas.

by **Anollasia** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:18 pm

Olwe wrote:As a secular country, Olwe has never had anything like Thanksgiving... thanking gods for anything at all kind of goes against everything we stand for. Plus, the traditional Thanksgiving food is way too bland for us.

As for Black Friday, we take a similar stance to Minoa... it's a necessary evil, but tightly regulated and forced to expand beyond just the one day. If a store has riots, stampedes or other similar issues, they are permanently shut down without hesitation or question, and if the problem occurred because the store was understocked on a big-ticket item then the owners of the store are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for reckless endangerment (or felony murder, if someone died).

I thought Thanksgiving was secular.

Anyway, we celebrate Thanksgiving the first Monday of October.

Black Friday, Boxing Day and other consumerist holidays are not celebrated.

by **The Nexus of Man** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:21 pm

Anollasia wrote:
Olwe wrote:As a secular country, Olwe has never had anything like Thanksgiving... thanking gods for anything at all kind of goes against everything we stand for. Plus, the traditional Thanksgiving food is way too bland for us.

As for Black Friday, we take a similar stance to Minoa... it's a necessary evil, but tightly regulated and forced to expand beyond just the one day. If a store has riots, stampedes or other similar issues, they are permanently shut down without hesitation or question, and if the problem occurred because the store was understocked on a big-ticket item then the owners of the store are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for reckless endangerment (or felony murder, if someone died).

I thought Thanksgiving was secular.

Anyway, we celebrate Thanksgiving the first Monday of October.

Black Friday, Boxing Day and other consumerist holidays are not celebrated.

Its.

Thanksgiving is celebrated in the Nexus. A lot.

by **Arkiasis** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 2:57 pm

Our equivalent of "Thanksgiving" is called Harvest Festival and the corresponding public holiday is on 30 September. However, the Festival itself lasts for 16 days from late September to early October. It's a large celebration consisting of copious amounts of food, beer and funfair attractions/contests to mark the end of the farming season.

by **Novus Niciae** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 5:59 pm

We have the harvest festival at the end of Autumn (the date is variable since the seasons vary on different planets , and planets with no seasons use Terra Niciae Seasons) , This festival is celebrated by a street party where people set up large tables on the street and fill them with all kinds of food that usually has the regional food crop as a main ingredient, and people walk up and down the street sampling the various dishes.

by **Davinhia** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:40 pm

Here in davinhia, people sit down with their families and eat a nice turkey or ham dinner. they celebrate the ikanians as being "indians" and the revolutionists as being "pilgrims"
and bam
you got a thanksgiving

by **New Pyrrhius** » Mon Nov 17, 2014 6:59 pm

there is nothing left to hide from

by **Freemopia** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 2:55 am

Less than 1% of the population participates in thanksgiving and black friday. Mostly people who's family members or close friends came from nations where these are more popular.
Less than 1% of retailers participate in black friday. It doesn't result in riots. If 100% of retailers participated in black friday and riots occurred, the retailers wouldn't be at fault for the riots, and retailers would be and are allowed to start or end promotion when ever they want.
In other nations where walmart is a popular store, it might be in walmart's interest to prevent overcrowding since overcrowding probably doesn't benefit walmart. For less popular stores, promotion around black friday might not result in overcrowding, thus banning it would be a waste of time and resources and might result in less customers for those stores.
Overcrowding in stores isn't illegal.
Riots are not illegal.
Freemopia’s Laws: http://www.nationstates.net/nation=free ... /id=170897

by **Alizeria** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:43 am

Alizeria does not have thanksgiving or Black Friday. (Also, OOCly I have never heard of Black Friday.)

by **Fatatatutti** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:01 am

Olwe wrote:... thanking gods for anything at all kind of goes against everything we stand for.

Yes. If there were any gods, we would probably see them as enemies rather than benefactors.

As for "Black Friday", Fatatatutians are too laid-back to make a big issue of shopping. The general attitude is that, "It will probably be cheaper next week - or whenever I get around to going." It has been said that Fatatatutti is not very consumer-oriented because Fatatatutians are too lazy to go shopping.

In any case, most prices in Fatatatutti are arranged by haggling.

by **Longweather** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:12 am

The Imperial Dominion of Longweather does not recognize any holidays called Thanksgiving or Black Friday. However, the Imperial Dominion does celebrate a massive harvest festival called the Twlight Harvest that lasts several weeks.

by **Auzkhia** » Tue Nov 18, 2014 10:55 am

We don't. It's a North American thing.

Though, some places have a feast of thankfulness to the Gods, it's a religious feast celebrated in some German states.

by **Akaidia** » Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:33 pm

Being traditionally Christian, our nation celebrates all Christian (Catholic) holidays.
We also have:
National day. - January 4th
Chancellors Day. February 2nd
Speakers Day. February 9th

by **Vallermoore** » Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:35 pm

We don't have Thanksgiving, but we eat a lot at Christmas.

by **Geadland** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 5:58 am

Our closest equivalent to Thanksgiving is the Harvest Festival (Höüstshöütid) which is held on the third Sunday of September. Until 1963, it was held on the Sunday after the harvest moon. The Harvest Festival is celebrated with communal meals and giving food and money to charity.

There's no equivalent of Black Friday in Geadland.

by **Greater Weselton** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 2:57 pm

These kind of holidays are not common here.

by **Themiclesia** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 3:04 pm

The 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 18th, 21st, 25th, 29th, and 30th (if there be one) days of the lunar month are holidays.

The solstices, equinoctium, the king's, the queen's, and queen dowager's birthday, are also public holidays. The feast days of one's personal ancestors are also recognized leaves. For the average person, this means the working year is only about 90 days long.

by **Parhe** » Fri Nov 21, 2014 8:32 pm

Chuseok is celebrated as it is in RL.

by **Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 7:39 pm

Merry Christmas!

by **Rosenheim** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 7:45 pm

Erntedankfest is literally a harvest festival in Rosenheim. Historically it was a time to thank god for the foods he had provided, but today it is largely associated as a time to get together with family and friends to have large meals.

by **Weegeelandia** » Sat Nov 22, 2014 8:14 pm

The closest thing Weegeelandia has to Thanksgiving is Gwegweeeeewweegeweegegeeweegeweege, which means something close to "Turkey Weegee" in Weegeelandia's native language, Weegish. For a month before the event, Weegeelandians... ahem... "borrow" turkeys from other countries and keep them locked up. On the big day, the turkeys are released into the cities of Weegeelandia at 1:00 AM. At 1:00 P.M, the citizens set out to find and Weegeefy every last turkey. It's fun for everyone, except the turkeys.