Thanksgiving

Chapter 13

Thanksgiving Day, an annual holiday in the United States and Canada, is a time for people to count their blessings and celebrate the harvest from the past year. The American holiday is full of history and symbolism, especially when it comes to the meal. The traditional Thanksgiving dinner consists of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberries, green beans, and pumpkin pie for dessert. This holiday is one of the busiest of the year, as it's a tradition for all families to gather and give their thanks!

Let me tell you a little about Thanksgiving’s history. It’s believed that the holiday began with the Wampanoag people and English colonists, who are known as Pilgrims. They would gather together and share the harvest feast, and that is known as one of the first official Thanksgiving dinners.

The New England colonists became accustomed to celebrating Thanksgiving as a way to pray to God and give Him their thanks for the end of war and drought. Yet, at this point, Thanksgiving hadn’t become an official holiday. After 1798, the U.S Congress left Thanksgiving declarations to the states, even though some objected to the government’s involvement in a religious observance.

Now, Thanksgiving only became an official holiday when the editor of a popular magazine, Sarah Josepha Hale, campaigned for a national Thanksgiving to promote unity. She eventually won the support of President Abraham Lincoln. On October 3rd, 1863, during the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated on that Thursday, November 26th.

The holiday was annually celebrated by every president afterwards, and the date chosen for the holiday (with a few exceptions), became the last Thursday in November.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little about this holiday and the roots of which we celebrate it by. I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving!

Written by Daphne Clarke.
Edited by Hazel Antler.