11 days until Thanksgiving 2026

Each weekday until Thanksgiving 2026

Counting the days after today, up to and including Thursday, November 26, 2026. Useful for counting school days, work shifts or a weekly class before Thanksgiving.

What's open and closed on Thanksgiving 2026

Sources: OPM federal holidays, Federal Reserve holiday schedule, NYSE holidays and trading hours, USPS holiday notices. Individual banks, branches and post offices can set their own hours; check locally.

About Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving traces its story to 1621, when the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and members of the Wampanoag people shared a harvest feast that lasted several days. Days of thanksgiving were declared from time to time after that, including one proclaimed by George Washington in 1789, but there was no fixed national holiday.

Writer and editor Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for years for a national day, and in 1863, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November. Presidents followed that custom until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday a week earlier to lengthen the holiday shopping season. After a few years in which states disagreed on the date, Congress settled the matter in 1941: Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November, so it always falls between November 22 and 28. It is a federal holiday, and many workplaces also close the Friday after.

The typical celebration is a large family meal: roast turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Many households watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, first held in 1924, and the afternoon NFL games. The president pardons a turkey at the White House, and the next day, Black Friday, is widely seen as the start of the holiday shopping season. Many communities also organize food drives and volunteer meals.

How we check dates and facts: see our sources.

Thanksgiving over the next ten years

Thanksgiving by year