Thanksgiving, A North American Holiday

Bumped up from 2007

For my friends from other continents, a little about Thanksgiving.

How we celebrate:

It is customary to have turkey and dishes featuring North American autumn fruits and vegetables. It's a time when extended family gets together to share each others company and give thanks for God's abundance and mercy. There is a contemporary tradition to watch football, and fall asleep in an easy chair after making a glutton of yourself. We don't watch football here, ack, did I say that out loud! Sacrilege! My husband loved sports as a young person, and excelled at it, but curiously he doesn't enjoy watching it on television.

We usually have my out-of-town parents over, but this year they have other plans. Dh has to work Thanksgiving day, so we'll be going to the fire station for a tasty homemade meal over there. No cooking for me except a dessert dish.

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

"Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is an annual one-day holiday to give thanks for the things one has at the end of the harvest season. In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. The period from Thanksgiving Day to New Year's Day is often collectively referred to as the "holiday season" in the United States."

The first Thanksgivings were celebrated by early settlers in the New World.

"The Pilgrims were particularly thankful to Squanto, the Native American who taught them how to catch eel and grow corn and who served as an interpreter for them (Squanto had learned English as a slave in Europe and travels in England). Without Squanto's help the Pilgrims might not have survived in the New World. The explorers who later came to be called the "Pilgrims" set apart a day to celebrate at Plymouth immediately after their first harvest, in 1621. At the time, this was not regarded as a Thanksgiving observance; harvest festivals were existing parts of English and Wampanoag tradition alike."

The story of the Pilgrims is a popular Thanksgiving tradition, and the children often put on plays, and make little crafty things related to autumn harvest and the Pilgrims.

Also check out this post at Laudem Gloriae, a small bit of history regarding the Pilgrims, Democracy, Thanksgiving, etc. HT to Tea at Trianon.