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syd03 Thanksgiving, HarvestFest and Oktoberfest are all based on the same tradition of theme, meaning those festive times are celebrated in conjunction with a particular Nation's farm harvest time.
Note as well that farm harvest celebrations are consistent among countries which lie at the same geographical latitude across the globe.
For example, in the Canadian mid-west where most of the commercial food grains are grown for the world, the southern latitude of the Canadian Prairie Provinces lies at about 50 degrees north latitude which is also the same latitude as southern UK, southern Scandinavia, Germany, northern France and mid-Ukraine, all of which are strong agriculture producers, all of which harvest their crops at exactly the same time of year... typically October for food grains and corn.
What you end up with is Canada, southern UK, southern Scandinavia, northern France, all of Germany and most of Ukraine in some kind of harvest celebration in October, hence the term Oktoberfest ...which arose out of Germany.
In Uk and some European nations who celebrate the harvest, it is called HarvestFest. In North America it is typically called "Thanksgiving" which I believe came to pass from being more aligned with very old, very conservative Evangelical values and influences, as well as British Monarchy influences over the past 200 years in both Canada and the USA.
Keep in mind that Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth, whereas the USA remains heavy joined at the hip with Great Britain since that is where the very first so-called "Americans" migrated from TO North America was Great Britain 250 years ago and to this day, still carry a VERY conservative mandate within their American social culture, despite trying to pretend that they are something separate and apart from their former British roots and therefore are much more 'special' on the world stage than any other nation on earth, which of course is the epitome of "fake news".
The reason the USA celebrates "American Thanksgiving" on the fourth Thursday in November, which quite frankly is well into the winter for even Canada's most southerly latitude (49th Parallel), the official harvest dates in the southern USA more closely align with the month of November than they do the month of October.
This occurs because in the USA, they can sometimes enjoy two crop rotations within a single growing season (April to November- 8 months), whereas in Canada, the growing season is roughly 6 months long (May to October incl.) compared to the US. The downside to harvesting two crops pre year is that the soil becomes so totally 'spent' that it turns to dust over time.
