This thanksgiving is only a day away, yet supermarkets aren’t stocked with turkeys.

That’s because the centerpiece for this Chinese and Vietnamese harvest celebration doesn’t include a bulky bird.

During “Zhongqiu Jie” or the Mid-Autumn Festival, people give family, friends and colleagues moon cakes, a small but filling pastry embossed with a description of its innards or the name of a bakery. Others have patterns of clouds, the moon or a rabbit.

The treats are traditionally filled with an egg yolk embraced by lotus seed, red bean or jujube paste and five varieties of nuts and seeds.

“It’s almost like a Christmas fruitcake. It’s a traditional gift that people just give each other during the Moon Festival,” said Becky Sun, a Pacific Asia Museum spokeswoman. “Adult children give them to parents and seniors. Friends and business partners give them to each other as an appreciation for their support in the past. It’s best wishes for another year of harvest and prosperity (or) exchanging a good blessing.”

Often called the Moon Cake Festival, the 15th day of the 8th lunar month is devoted to reunions, paying thanks to the year’s harvest and (for Taoists and some Buddhists) praying for another year of sweet yields. This year the Mid-Autumn Festival falls on Sept. 19.

“It’s a harvest festival. That’s its origin, but it has a good deal more about it,” said Clayton Dube, executive director of USC’s U.S.-China Institute. “That’s one of the striking things about it. The Harvest Moon is of course a bigger moon. You have this wonderful love story that is a part of it …”

The legend of Chang’e and Houyi has become a product of a game of telephone, but the tale’s core remains consistent.

Eons ago, 10 disobedient suns caused drought and death by all gallivanting in the skies when they were supposed to take turns roaming the heavens. Houyi, a talented archer, shot down nine of the scorching orbs.

People celebrated their beloved hero and came to him to learn martial arts. During this time, Houyi met and married Chang’e, a beautiful, virtuous woman.

The story diverges here, but one of the more popular versions says Houyi went to Kunlun Mountain, where the gods lived, and obtained an immortality pill from Xi Wangmu, the Goddess of the West. He gave it to Chang’e for safekeeping.

While Houyi was away, an evil disciple, Peng Meng, tried to steal the pill. Instead of handing the treasure over, Chang’e swallowed it and immediately floated to the moon.

Houyi spent his days and nights lamenting the loss of his wife. He put an incense table in his yard and put out a spread of Chang’e’s favorite foods, which included moon cakes. People followed suit in camaraderie with their hero and to pray that goddess Chang’e bring them happiness and safety.

Last week Sandy La, 43, went to the 168 Market in Alhambra to buy moon cakes for her mother, sister and any family members older than her.

“It’s what you do in our culture when you are part of the younger generation,” said La, a San Dimas resident. “For the Mid-Autumn Festival and New Year — especially when you’re married — you bring back to the family. It’s a kind of respect for your mom. That’s very special for her.”

If La were in Vietnam, she would sit on her second-floor balcony, enjoy the full moon (which legend says will show an outline of Chang’e) and swap stories with her extended family.

But nobody has time for that in America, she said, so she’ll just spend time indoors with her nuclear family. They will chat over a table of steamed taro, moon cake and tea after La burns incense and prays for a healthy family, for her children to listen to her, and for her husband to have job stability and even get a promotion.

A box of moon cakes at the 168 Market in Alhambra ranges from about $13 to $59, but every single employee is gifted a box to “boost employee morale and increase employee productivity,” said Virginia Tan, a 168 Market spokeswoman.

In fact, institutions and businesses generally give their workers these dense pastries.

“Like it or not, you have to eat it because it’s tradition,” said Mary Wang, from San Gabriel.

But not everyone feels this way. Like fruitcakes, the re-gifting of moon cakes is commonplace. After a couple weeks of hot potato, people in Hong Kong threw away nearly 2 million moon cakes last year, Dube said.

Even though the heart of the festival is sometimes tossed out, the importance of the Mid-Autumn Festival and its legendary characters is a pervading Chinese tradition, Dube said. Mei Lanfang is one of the most famous Peking Opera singers, and he played the role of Chang’e. The name of Beijing’s lunar orbiter in 2007 is Chang’e 1. Chang’e 2 rocketed into space in 2010, and Chang’e 3 will soon follow its loved ones.

“That is a way of reminding people of Chinese tradition and the moon,” Dube said. “It speaks to that tradition in the same way that in the U.S., you had programs named after various Greek gods. You had the Apollo spacecraft, but you also had the Saturn rockets that carried it.”