Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. In spite of its religious form (giving thanks to God for a good harvest), its essential, secular meaning is a celebration of successful production. It is a producers’ holiday. The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production. Abundance is (or was and ought to be) America’s pride — just as it is the pride of American parents that their children need never know starvation.

— Ayn Rand, “Cashing in on Hunger,” The Ayn Rand Letter, III, 23, 1