page_title: Thanksgiving
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Thanksgiving / Similar holidays / Germany
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Erntedankteppich, Pfarrkirche St. Johann Baptist, Treherz, Gemeinde Aitrach, Landkreis Ravensburg Русский: Ковер из плодов в церкви. Равенсбург, Германия.
context_page_description: Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, some of the Caribbean islands, and Liberia. It began as a day of giving thanks and sacrifice for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and Brazil, and around the same part of the year in other places. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.
context_section_description: The Harvest Thanksgiving Festival, Erntedankfest, is a popular German Christian festival on the first Sunday of October. The festival has a significant religious component, and unlike its North American counterpart, it usually does not include large dinners. Many churches are decorated with autumn crops, beautifully arranged in front of the altar. In some places, there are religious processions or parades. Many Bavarian beer festivals, like the Munich Oktoberfest, take place within the vicinity of Erntedankfest.
  The United States has observed German-American Day annually on October 6, within the vicinity of Erntedankfest, from 1883 until the early 1910s, then again from 1983 to the present day.
caption: A food decoration for Erntedankfest, a Christian Thanksgiving harvest festival celebrated in Germany
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "IMAG0020.JPG", "Image Make": "AIPTEK", "Image Model": "DSC4400", "Image Software": "V1.40", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:10 11:55:12", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "172", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/33", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:10 11:50:10", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:10 11:50:10", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "14/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "33", "EXIF FocalLength": "149/20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}