How Other Countries Celebrate Thanksgiving: Norfolk Island
It may come as a shock to learn that the tiny remote island located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean celebrates Thanksgiving, but there is a great explanation as to why they do.
Norfolk Island resident Tom Lloyd told NPR in an interview that their Thanksgiving holiday is “one of the biggest days on Norfolk Island.”
The now-Australian territory was once a British penal colony and was later included as a British auxiliary settlement in 1786.
Lloyd explained that the English Harvest Home festival was always celebrated on the island, but it wasn’t until the late 1800s that the Americanized version of the tradition came to the island.
Because the island became a popular destination for whaling ships coming from the United States when an American trader named Isaac Robinson settled on Norfolk he brought with him the Thanksgiving tradition.
Robinson eventually became Norfolk Island’s Registrar of Lands, as well as the first and only U.S. consul. Sometime in the 1890s, Robinson had the idea to dress one of the island’s churches up with Thanksgiving-style decorations.
All Saints Church in the capital of Kingston was dressed up by Robinson and three of his friends. It was fashioned out of palm trees and lemons. Robinson reportedly died the following year, but the tradition stuck with the community. It is celebrated on the last Wednesday in November every year.
“The tradition became to tie corn stalks to the pew ends and pile flowers on the altar and the font,” Lloyd said. “At first, each family took home its own fruit and vegetables after the service, but today they are sold to raise money for church preservation.”
