Every autumn, on September 29 (today!), Latvia celebrates Miķeļi — an old harvest festival marking the transition from summer into the darker part of the year.
Sometimes I think of it as our version of Thanksgiving.
Not because the two holidays are actually the same. They aren’t. But there is something familiar about the idea behind both: the harvest is gathered, the table is full, and we pause to appreciate what we have.
Thanksgiving in the United States is strongly associated with family, a big meal and giving thanks. Miķeļi has a similar connection to food, family and the harvest, but its roots go much deeper into Latvia’s traditional agricultural calendar and folk beliefs.
Traditionally, Miķeļi was the time when most of the important harvest work was coming to an end. Grain had been gathered, vegetables stored, apples picked, and preparations for winter were underway.
And you can feel that change in the landscape.
The days are getting noticeably shorter. The mornings are colder. The garden is slowly emptying. There are fewer flowers, fewer insects, and that particular feeling that summer has really gone.
The food associated with Miķeļi also reflects the season — bread, grains, potatoes, vegetables, apples and whatever else the harvest has provided.
There are folk traditions too: songs, dances, fortune-telling, seasonal rituals and beliefs about the changing year. Miķeļi wasn’t simply a nice autumn dinner. It was part of a much larger understanding of the year and its cycles.
That is probably the biggest difference between Miķeļi and Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is a holiday centred around giving thanks.
Miķeļi is more about the turning of the year, the harvest and the relationship between people, land and the seasons.
Still, I like making the comparison.
Except instead of a turkey in November, imagine a September table covered with potatoes, apples, bread, vegetables and everything you’ve managed to grow or gather.
And outside, autumn is already arriving.
Happy Miķeļi 🙂
Ilze
P.S. We have to be at school tonight for Parents’ Evening, so we won’t be celebrating it quite the way I had imagined…
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Ilze – a somewhat belated ‘happy Mikeli’ indeed . . . we do it exactly the same way in Estonia . . . my computer refuses to allow Estonian vowels, but it is called ‘Loikusepuha’ or ‘Harvest Festival’ . . . it is a movable feast day, this year 11 October . . . am just wondering how the Bigger Powers did not allow the two neighbouring countries to say thanks for nature’s bounty on the same day ?!