NOVEMBER
Thanksgiving in the United States
More than 350 years ago, grateful Pilgrims joined with their Native American neighbors to celebrate the first Thanksgiving. For three days they sang, danced, and feasted on fish, wild turkey, venison, and Indian corn. While the date of the original Thanksgiving is unknown, today’s late-November tradition is still a time for families to get together and enjoy each other’s company.

DECEMBER
Incwala in Swaziland, South Africa
This six-day “Festival of the First Fruits” is full of ritual and ceremony. The festivities begin as priests gather seawater and foam off of ocean waves, young men cut branches from the Lusekwane tree, and others chant and dance. The climax of the event comes when the king chews and then spits out the first fruit of the season, indicating that now, his people have permission to eat their crops.

JANUARY
Pongal in southern India
Pongal, named for a sweet rice dish, is a four-day festival marking the end of the rice, turmeric, and sugar cane harvest. Families clean their houses and throw away or burn old clothing in large bonfires. To honor the cattle that plow the land, farmers paint the animals and decorate them with flowers and bells. On the last day, neighbors, friends, and families gather together for a community feast.

MARCH
Festival de la Vendimia in Peru
Since colonial times, this festival in Ica, Peru, has celebrated the abundant grape harvest. A “queen” is chosen, and she creates wine using traditional techniques—by stomping the fruit with her feet. Revelers also watch cock fights, enjoy musical concerts, participate in parades, and of course, drink pisco, a grape brandy that has been made from that year’s crop.

AUGUST
Lammas Day in the British Isles
In medieval times, Lammas Day (1 August) marked the first wheat harvest of the year. Loaves of bread were baked and placed on church altars as offerings. In order to ensure a plentiful crop for the coming year, dolls were made out of sheaves of grain, and in the spring the dolls would be plowed into fallow fields. Today the holiday is still commemorated with fairs held annually throughout the British Isles.

SEPTEMBER
Harvest Moon Festivals in China, Korea, and Vietnam
Chusok in Korea, Tet Trung Thu in Vietnam, and Chung Ch’ui in China: each one is the autumn harvest moon festival during which families, villages, and communities give thanks for the rice harvest. Under the bright full moon, people eat sweets, mooncakes filled with lotus seed paste, and special rice cakes called songpyon made of rice, beans, sesame seeds, and chestnuts. Other activities include lighting colorful paper lanterns and making food offerings at ancestors’ tombs.

OCTOBER
Sukkot or Feast of the Tabernacles in Israel
The Sukkot is a historical and religious observance dating back to biblical times. Traditionally this is when grapes, olives, and other fruits are harvested. Today, the Jewish people build temporary shelters or booths, called sukkot, just as their ancestors did thousands of years ago during their exodus from Egypt. Some people spend the entire week living in their sukkot; others eat their evening meals of stuffed peppers, cabbage, pastries, and knishes there.