Thanksgivings Day
Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday
celebrated primarily in United States and Canada as a day giving thanks for the
blessing of the harvest and the preceding year, you can also observe that
several other places around the world have similar celebrations.
Thanksgiving
day is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November in the United States and on the second Monday of October in Canada and this holiday has a
historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, and has long been
celebrated in a secular manner as well.
Each year on November, American families
gather together for a day of feasting, football and good times. Even if today’s
thanksgiving celebrations would likely be unrecognizable to attendees of the
original 1621 harvest meal, it continues to be a day for Americans to come
together around the table and enjoy some updates to the pilgrim’s menu.
History of Thanksgiving Holiday
In 1621, the Plymouth colonist and Wampanoag
Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledge today as one of the
first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries,
days of thanks were celebrated by individual colonies and states, and it wasn’t
until 1863, in the midst of Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln
proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held in November.
In September
1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102
passengers. An assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where
they could freely practice their faith ad other individuals lured by promise of
prosperity and land ownership in the New World, and after a treacherous and
uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of
Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of Hudson River.One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims,
as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at
Plymouth.
Holiday Thanksgiving Traditions
Many American households, the Thanksgiving
celebration has lost much of its original religious significance; instead,
people only centers on cooking, and sharing a bountiful meal with family and
friends. Turkey, a thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but
synonymous with the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the
Pilgrims hosted the inaugural feast in 1621.
Today nearly 90 percent of Americans eat their
turkey, whether roasted, baked or deep-fried on thanksgiving according to the
National Turkey Federation. Other traditional foods including stiffing, mashed
potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. In some places volunteering is a
common Thanksgiving Day activity, and communities often hold food drives and
host free dinners for the people less fortunate.
In the United States cities and towns across
the country parades have also become an integral part of the holiday. This have
been presented by Macy’s department store since 1924, New York City’s
Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting around 2 to
3 millions or more spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an enormous
television audience.
Make sure this year you enjoy with your
family, sharing the table and most of all make sure you give thanks for your
family and all you have and for the good things that are yet to come.
