National Blog Posting Month

A Brief History of Thanksgiving

'Way back in about 1620 some Pilgrims came to America from England. Apparently these people didn't know too much about survival or agriculture, either. Many of them starved to death during the first winter. The next spring a friendly, English-speaking Indian came to their rescue, teaching them proper methods of planting, etc. When fall came they had a bounteous harvest. To celebrate the harvest they invited their Indian friends to join them in a feast where they ate turkey, goose, lobster, corn, pumpkin, etc. etc. The Indians contributed to the feast by bringing venison. A couple hundred years went by with people celebrating, or not, and giving thanks for the harvest. In 1863 (I think that's right) President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of Thanksgiving. He hoped this would be a unifying celebration for the nation. The people of the United States have celebrated a national day of Thanksgiving ever since. The traditional meal consists of roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetable side dishes such as corn, green beans, or Brussels sprouts, and pumpkin pie for dessert. This menu varies from family to family and region to region. Thanksgiving Day is a day of parades - most notably the Macy's parade in New York - and football games. Thanksgiving is celebrated the 4th Thursday in November. For those who are not football fans there are movies to watch either at the theater or on tv. For myself, I plan to curl up with a good book or two. Happy Thanksgiving!

2 Comments

Comment by Jientje/heaveninbelgium on November 22, 2007 at 7:49am: Ooohhhh! Thank you so much! That is so sweet of you, you know , here in Belgium we have heard of Thanksgiving through television series or sitcoms and stuff like that, but all we know is that peiople eat turkey! Giving thanks, yes, I always supposed it had something to do with harvesting, but I never really knew! Thank you so much for writing this post!

Comment by Christine on November 24, 2007 at 6:30pm: Thanksgiving is also celebrated in Canada in October.(we always have to be just a bit different) It doesn't have any connection to the early settlers. It is set aside as a day to be thankful or grateful for all your blessings. Turkey and pumpkin pie, getting together with family and friends...probably adopted from the Americans. We don't have any big football games on that day but if we did that would get thrown into the mix! Tomorrow is Grey Cup day (Canada's Superbowl) Our team is in it this year. Wooo-Hooo! Google: Saskatchewan Roughriders. Probably our fans are some of the craziest on the planet. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.We did...in October LOL