Thanksgiving?

Question

Probably sound a bit naive and obviously I've heard of it but seriously, what is it? What are you celebrating? What do you do to celebrate? When is it?

Answer 1

Its a day for giving thanks.. you get together with family and friends and enjoy food laughter and togetherness.. At our house before we say grace.. everyone says what they are thankful for the pass year... we take this part serious.. most of us start thinking about what we will say about a month before... Thanksgiving is always the last Thursday in November.. & It started when the pligrims came to America.. After having spent a winter hunger, cold, sick and dying.. The American Indians taught the Pilgrims how to farm and grown fruits and veggies.. after the harvest they all got toegther for a feast to give thanks for what they have and for their new friends the Indians.. wild turkey was availble as well as fowel... which served as main course along with corn and squash and potatoes... Its my favorite holiday..

Answer 2

Thanksgiving is an American and Canadian holiday that is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November (in America) and the 2nd Monday in October (in Canada.)

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in the autumn of 1621, in Massachusetts, after the harvest between the pilgrims and the Native Americans (who helped them survive that year). It was generally celebrated after the first harvest until 1644 when the Dutch in the New Netherlands appointed a day to celebrate this. During the American Revolution it was celebrated in each State in accordance with the State rules. In 1863 Abraham Lincoln set a date to the last Thursday of November. It was set by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 to the next to the last Thursday of November. In 1941 Congress set it to the 4th Thursday of November and is still to this day celebrated at that time.

Canada started their celebration of Thanksgiving in 1578 in Newfoundland. Their first observed holiday was 5 April 1872, by the Confederation to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales from an illness. In 1957 it was set by the Canadian government to the 2nd Monday in October, which is the same day the American celebrate Columbus Day.

Answer 3

The 4th Thurs. of November. Started out because of the pilgrims and the Indians getting together to break bread. We probably started out celebrating because of this,but since I've read up on it,I still celebrate but for different reasons. I love Thanksgiving for family ,fun, and mostly food (and lots of it). I am thankful for every day I get. I don't need anybody giving me a certain day to do this.

Answer 4

It dates back to early pagan times when families would give thanks to the Gods for a bountiful harvest. In the U.S.A. it is a celebration of the group of settlers who traveled across the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower and settled in Massachusetts first harvest. Because the settlers first had to build shelter from the elements their harvest was late in the year which is why in the U.S.A. it is in November. Modern times it is a reason for families to gather around a large dinner and enjoy each others company and get ready for the holiday season.

Answer 5

C'mon?! It's only my favorite holiday of the year! Thanksgiving is a holiday that remembers the the early settlers (pilgrims) having a meal with the native americans (indians) and giving thanks to God for His provision and blessings.
You celebrate Thanksgiving by having a large feast of food and you gather around friends & family giving thanks to God for them and the blessings in each others lives.
It is always celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November (here in the USA).

Answer 6

According to American history books ,is a celebration of thanks between the pilgrims and Indians, but the story as I found out is altogether different. In Puertorico is called turkey day, because we love feasts, going back to Alejandro O Reilly who was send back in the 15 or 16th century to give the king of Spain a que pasa in Puerto rico, and he wrote back: ; your majesty , they are festival people, they celebrate holy night, then follows the three kings day, then the octavitas , and if not there is a baptism , or a wedding, or someones birthday, or someones death , they plant one banana tree and eat for three years , but ,your majesty more loyal people one cannot find! So bravos for holydays!

Answer 7

Origins of Thanksgiving
Following a nineteenth century tradition, most Americans believe that the first American Thanksgiving was a feast that took place on an unremembered date, sometime in the autumn of 1621, at Plymouth Plantation, Massachusetts. In 1620, a group led by separatists from the Church of England, who were heading for Virginia, instead landed at modern-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, for uncertain reasons. In the autumn of 1621, they celebrated a three-day harvest feast with the native Wampanoag people, without whom they would not have survived the winter of 1620. This event was not viewed as a thanksgiving celebration at the time; the colony would not have a Thanksgiving observance until 1623 — and that was a religious observance rather than a feast.

The nineteenth century reinterpretation of the 1621 festival has since become a model for the U.S. version of Thanksgiving, but it was an established tradition before the popularization of the Pilgrim mythology. For example, the modern Canadian Thanksgiving was brought to Canada by United Empire Loyalists after the American War for Independence.

The first known thanksgiving feast or festival in North America was celebrated by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado and the people he called "Tejas" (members of the Hasinai group of Caddo-speaking Native Americans) on 23 May 1541 in Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, to celebrate his expedition's discovery of food supplies.[citation needed] In the sense of a feast in gratitude to God celebrated by Europeans in North America, this has a claim to be the true first north American Thanksgiving. The next was apparently celebrated a quarter-century later on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida. When Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed, he and his men shared a feast with the aboriginal peoples. Later, the aboriginal people called themselves "apple-tangerines" (which may or may not indicate those fruits were on the menu at that "Thanksgiving"). Another candidate for the first true Thanksgiving in territory now part of the United States is the feast that the party of Don Juan de Oñate celebrated April 30, 1598 near the site of San Elizario, Texas with the Manso Indians

Thanksgiving is related to harvest festivals that had long been a traditional holiday in much of Europe. The first North American celebration of these traditional festivals by Europeans was held in Newfoundland by Martin Frobisher and the Frobisher Expedition to find the Northwest Passage in 1578, and Canadians trace their Thanksgiving to that festival.
Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated with a large dinner shared among friends and family. In both Canada and the United States, it is an important family gathering, and people often travel long distances to be with relatives for the celebration. The Thanksgiving holiday is often a "four-day weekend" in the United States, in which Americans are given the relevant Thursday and Friday off. Thanksgiving is usually celebrated almost entirely at home, unlike the Fourth of July or Christmas, which are associated with a variety of shared public experiences (fireworks, caroling, etc.). In Canada, it is a three-day weekend, as Thanksgiving is observed on the second Monday of October every year.

In New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held annually every Thanksgiving Day in Midtown Manhattan. The parade features moving stands (also known as "floats") with specific themes, scenes from Broadway plays, large balloons of cartoon characters and TV personalities, and high school marching bands. It always ends with the image of Santa Claus passing the reviewing stand. Thanksgiving parades also occur in many other cities such as Plymouth, Houston, Philadelphia (which claims the oldest parade), and Detroit (where it is the only major parade of the year). Within the New York metropolitan area, the city of Stamford, Connecticut holds an alternative parade to the Macy's parade (with different characters on the balloons) the Sunday before Thanksgiving that has attracted over 250,000 people in recent years. Because of the earlier date, Santa Claus parades in Canada do not fall on Thanksgiving; the only major parade on that day in Canada is the Oktoberfest parade in Kitchener-Waterloo.

Answer 8

We are celebrating the first winter of survival and harvest of the Early Americans, as they honored the Native Americans who had helped them during their struggles to build, plant, and harvest.

Answer 9

Celebrating a good harvest in the new world with the Native Americans. Now it is a family time to be with them and give thanks for all we have

Answer 10

thanksgiving is the day that the pilgrims traveled to america on the mayflower (a ship) and the pilgrims and the indians had a feast and they called it thanksgiving because they were giving thanks for all that they had. it is the fourth thursday in november.