Thanksgiving is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November every year, in the USA.
- let's read about Thanksgiving! (information found on kiddyhouse)
Thanksgiving Day is a day set aside each year where people in the United States and Canada give thanks to God for all the blessings they received during the year by feasting and prayer.
American Thanksgiving Day is probably a harvest festival at the beginning . The first Thanksgiving Day in America was on December 4, 1619. At that time, it was a fully religious thing. A group of 38 English settlers arrived at Berkeley Plantation via the James river (near Charles City, Va) on December 4, 1619 and their charter required that the day of their arrival be observed yearly as a day of thanksgiving to God.
In New England, the first Thanksgiving Day was celebrated in Plymouth in 1621 by the Pilgrims together with 91 Indians. The Pilgrims first set foot at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. The first winter in Massachusetts was really bad and 46 out of the original 102 Pilgrims died. It is believed that the Indians helped the Pilgrims through that difficult period and without them, the Pilgrims would not have survived.
In the following Spring of 1621, Samoset of the Wampanoag Tribe and Squanto of the Patuxtet tribe, taught the survivors how to plant corn or maize and how to catch alewives, a kind of fish to be used as a fertilizer for growing pumpkins, beans, peas and other crops. These two braves also taught the Pilgrims the art of hunting and angling. Things got better in 1621 when the corn and pumpkin harvest was bountiful. Governor William Bradford made arrangements to celebrate the bountiful harvest and to recognise the help given to the colonists by the indians with a feast which lasted for three days.
Today, Thanksgiving Day is usually a family reunion dinner celebration. Roast turkey is a favorite dish on this day.
- Thanksgiving Dinner
- the first Thanksgiving
- Other....
