A Day to Be Thankful
Thanksgiving Day is a day for loved ones reunions and thanking God for his infinite blessings and bountiful harvest. Marked on the fourth Thursday in the month of November each year, Thanksgiving Day is an important festival of the United States of America, considered to be among the top rated six annual holidays of the country. Luxurious classic meals, colorful parades, holidaying, popular sport games, and partying are the most frequent customs observed on this auspicious festival. The whole nation can be observed as a grand carnival time as this 3-day occasion draws closer. Families and good friends do not miss an opportunity to greet their loved ones with the best wishes on this day.
In 1620, a boat filled with more than 100 people sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World. This religious group had begun to question the beliefs of the Church of England and they wanted to get away from it. The Pilgrims settled in what is now the state of Massachusetts. Their initial winter in the New World was challenging. They had arrived too late to grow much crops, and without a supply of fresh food, half the colony died from disease. The following spring the Iroquois Indians taught them how to cultivate corn (maize), a new kind of food for the colonists. They showed them other crops to grow in the unfamiliar soil and how to hunt and fish.
In the autumn of 1621, bountiful crops of corn, barley, beans and pumpkins had been harvested. The colonists had a great deal to be thankful for, so a feast was planned. They invited the local Indian chief and 90 Indians. The Indians brought deer to roast with the turkeys and other wild game caught by the colonists. The colonists had discovered how to cook cranberries and several types of corn and squash dishes from the Indians. To this first Thanksgiving, the Indians had even brought popcorn.
In following years, many of the original colonists celebrated the autumn harvest with a feast of thanks. After the United States became an independent country, Congress recommended one yearly day of thanksgiving for the entire nation to celebrate. George Washington suggested the date November 26 as Thanksgiving Day. Then in 1863, at the finish of a extended and bloody civil war, Abraham Lincoln asked all Americans to set aside the final Thursday in November as a day of thanksgiving.
