Fri, Feb 29th 2008, 00:00
Thanksgiving is faithfully celebrated in households all over the USA on the 4th Thursday in November with an elaborate family feast of traditional ingredients like Turkey, corn and pumpkin pie.
The Thanksgiving holiday is a major feast day in the United States. Plymouth, Massachusetts, is credited as being the first Thanksgiving Celebration in the USA. It is here that the Pilgrim Fathers established their colony when they first landed on American soil in 1620 in the ship The Mayflower.
The Pilgrims had set off from Plymouth, England, in September and the treacherous weather of the Atlantic in winter meant that they were blown off their original course and landed unexpectedly on the outer shores of Cape Cod.
The exposed sandy terrain of Cape Cod seemed an unsuitable place to set up their lives, so they sailed across Cape Cod bay and arrived at what was later to be called Plymouth.
The Pilgrims had arrived in mid-winter and were ill-equipped for the harsh conditions. Many lost their lives in the first 6 months. Once the spring arrived, they sought the help of the local Wampanoag tribe on how to survive in their new environment. The Indians taught them how to grow the vegetables of the area, corn, beans and pumpkin. They showed them which plants had medicinal properties and which were poisonous, how to harvest clams from the rocks and get maple syrup.
By harvest time in 1621 things were looking more promising. The Pilgrims were better prepared for the winter ahead. As was the custom in their home country, they organised a huge Thanksgiving feast and invited their Native American friends to join in the celebrations.
Goose was the traditional English Thanksgiving meal, but the Pilgrims substituted the wild turkeys instead. The feast went on for 3 days and the Wampanoag guests brought food of their own, 5 deer, fish, beans, squash, corn soup, corn bread, and berries.
This Thanksgiving story has captured the hearts of Americans and many quote it as the origin of the Thanksgiving Celebration. However, Thanksgiving was a traditional celebration in England and it is known that settlers in Virginia had held Thanksgiving services in 1607 already. Thanksgiving only became a National Feast day in the USA when President Lincoln proclaimed it in 1863.
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