Thanksgiving Day in the United States

Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a traditional North American holiday to celebrate the end of the harvest season. Thanksgiving meals are most often celebrated as family events where certain foods are traditionally served. Most often, turkey is featured in Thanksgiving meals. Also usually served at Thanksgiving dinner are: stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, turnips, yams and pumpkin pie. Many dinners include guests, who bring food or help with cooking in the kitchen as part of a communal meal.

According to historical sources, there was no annual "Thanksgiving feast" held by the first pilgrims. Although the pilgrims did have a feast near Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621, this was not repeated after their first harvest. They didn't even call it a Thanksgiving feast. As they were devoutly religious people, this would have been a day of prayer and fasting.

However, this 1621 feast story has become the model for the Thanksgiving tradition in the United States. It's likely that this feast was eaten outside. From historical records we know that the feast continued for three days, and about 90 "Indians" (Native Americans) also attended. There was venison provided by the Native Americans and wild fowl - enough for a whole village for a week, including ducks, geese, turkeys, and swans.

Other authorities have linked the American thanksgiving with the Jewish tradition on Sukkot which is held in the fall, which expresses thanks to god for the bounty of the earth.

George Washington designated a national Thanksgiving holiday in 1789, for the newly ratified Constitution, so that the people may give thanks for "...affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness..." and for having "...been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed... "

President Lincoln made Thanksgiving Day a national holiday as a "prayerful day of Thanksgiving" on the last Thursday in November. Since then all U.S. Presidents make a Thanksgiving Proclamation on behalf of the nation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939

For information on Canadian Thanksgiving, see: Thanksgiving in Canada.