Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Day is November 26, 2009.

USA Thanksgiving Day: November 26, 2009

Thanksgiving is celebrated in the USA.

Regarded as a harvest festival, Thanksgiving Day is traditionally a time for giving thanks to the harvest. At the same time, it is the time to express your gratitude. This is a holiday, which gets celebrated mainly in US and Canada. Even though Thanksgiving is religious in origin, it is identified as a secular holiday in the modern world. The location and date of the very first Thanksgiving celebration has been a topic of contention. The earliest attested celebration took place in 1565 at St. Augustine, Florida. However, the traditional one occurred in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation.

Thanksgiving Day History

There are different cases of Thanksgiving Day observances in history, with all of them bearing a resemblance to modern celebrations. However, the circulated and accepted belief is that the Thanksgiving has its origin in the year 1621.

This was the time when Pilgrims (English settlers) and Native Americans together celebrated a 3-day long feast. They did it in Plymouth, Massachusetts. However, contrary to this, Pilgrims were not the first ones to have the Thanksgiving feasts. Feasts for celebrating good harvests were in existence way before the arrival of the Pilgrims. Nevertheless, it is true that the Pilgrims did hold the Thanksgiving feast in the very 1st year of their arrival in America.

Following the 1621 Thanksgiving belief, there began a Thanksgiving tradition for holding a feast after good harvest. Usually, people celebrate Thanksgiving for marking the Autumn Harvest and then making merry in plentiful yield. However, there is a lengthy tradition for celebrating harvests throughout the history. You might be interested to know that even the ancient Romans and Greeks had harvest celebrations. These celebrations were accompanied by feasts, music and parades similar to the modern day ones.

Ancient China saw harvest festival celebrated with families having feast on round yellowish cake (moon cake). They did it for celebrating a full moon. Still, the country celebrates the Moon Festival with the same joy. Again, there is the Jews’ harvest festival. Sukkot (Harvest fest of the Jew) gets celebrated for 8 days. It is an event for catching up with family on the feasts and be thankful to a good year ahead. British Isles also have a harvest festival (the Lammas). It marks the start of a harvest season.

Thanksgiving Day Traditions and Activities

Turkeys, tender and juicy butterball, are an integral part of the modern day cuisine of a Thanksgiving celebration. However, they were not as popular centerpieces in the first celebration as they are today.

During 1621, when Wampanoag Indians and Plymouth colonists celebrated the first ever Thanksgiving, they gobbled up many foods apart from turkey. Since duck, eel, seal, cod, lobster and goose were available in plenty during that season, they were more likely to be a part of the main course in the first feast. Historians have only been able to confirm the presence of Wild fowl and Deer meat as the items, which were surely a part of the autumn celebration.

The question, which still remains, is that how turkey became an imperative part of the menu, even though we are not sure about them being a part of the first feast.

One of the stories says how Queen Elizabeth of England (16th century) was chewing down a roast goose during the harvest festival. When she heard that the Spanish Armada sank while attempting an attack on England, the queen was pleased and ordered another goose for celebrating this great news. Thus, goose became a favorite bird during England’s harvest time. When Pilgrims arrived in USA from England, they replaced roasted goose with roasted turkey. The reason behind their preference was the easy availability of the bird in the region.

How Thanksgiving Day is Celebrated Worldwide

Thanksgiving, in the modern world, gets celebrated on the 4th Thursday of every November in US, whereas Canada celebrates it during the 2nd Monday of October. A Thanksgiving dinner gets held on the day, which is usually a gathering of all the members of your family and friends.