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Does UPS Deliver Packages Thanksgiving Day 2017 & November 24?

Does UPS Deliver Packages Thanksgiving Day 2017 & November 24?
United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) truck makes deliveries July 23, 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

UPS observes some government holidays. Do they deliver on Thanksgiving Day? What about the day after, November 24? According to the official UPS calendar, the answer is yes and no. UPS does not deliver on Thanksgiving, but they do deliver November 24. After that, it's business as usual until Christmas Day, on Monday, December 25. They will again be closed on Monday, January 2 to observe New Year's Day, which falls on a Sunday this year.

UPS gets extremely busy around the holiday season. And while they are not closed much leading up to Christmas, they do have a different year-end schedule. View it here.


The History of Thanksgiving

The first Thanksgiving between Wampanoag Native Americans and Puritan colonists occurred in 1621 and is sparsely recorded, but forms the basis for the modern celebration. The 3-day celebration occurred in Plymouth, present-day Massachusetts, and was prompted by a good harvest. However, it is unknown if turkey was on the menu. History.com writes:

While no records exist of the exact bill of fare, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow noted in his journal that the colony’s governor, William Bradford, sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the three-day event. Wild—but not domestic—turkey was indeed plentiful in the region and a common food source for both English settlers and Native Americans. But it is just as likely that the fowling party returned with other birds we know the colonists regularly consumed, such as ducks, geese and swans.

Whatever the menu, the first Thanksgiving did not immediately catch on. It did not become an annual affair until the 1660s and it was not until the American Revolution that George Washington proclaimed the first nationwide thanksgiving celebration on November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God."

It was during the Civil War that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving date as a federal holiday to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, according to Abraham Lincoln Online.