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Thanksgiving Day History - How Thanksgiving Celebrate

05 november 2018

Thanksgiving Day History - How Thanksgiving Celebrate

During many centuries people marked obtaining rich crop every year. Festivities in honor of the heavy crop have been a general custom in every country.    


The Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Chinese, and Hebrews have all had crop fiestas, even before the appearance of a certain religion in a particular nation.

The fist festival dedicated to the Thanksgiving occurred in 1621. The Native Americans celebrated the holiday together with the Pilgrims as the latter were occupied with agriculture and hunting in the same manner as the Indians. If the Native Americans hadn’t assist the colonists in their struggle for life, they couldn’t have anything to eat during the first year in the New World; besides the Indians taught the new comers how to obtain rich crop.  

At the beginning the holiday wasn’t called “Thanksgiving”. It was a festival dedicated to the finish of gathering in the harvest  and the most important things of the up-to-date table such as cranberry sauce, turkey, and pumpkin pie were not principal at all. It is necessary to underline that wild fowl, turkey and duck were cooked, but turkey for sure wasn’t the main dish.

It is well known that the newcomers lived not far from the Atlantic Ocean so it’s not a wonder that they ate a lot of everything they could catch in the sea. They could grow some kinds of vegetables, squash among them, but garnishes were not so important.  The colonists hadn’t sugar enough and the stoves were absent at that time so the sweet course couldn’t contain pies and cakes.  

It is believed now that the crop holiday of Pilgrims can be assumed to be the first Thanksgiving day, but actually the word “Thanksgiving” was the name of some religious festivity up to the 19th century. It was in 1817 in New York State that Thanksgiving Day was decided to be an official holiday celebrated every year. President Abraham Lincoln was the first in 1863 to announce Thanksgiving the national event, and since that year every president proclaimed the Thanksgiving Day. During the period when Franklin D. Roosevelt was the president of the USA, the holiday was celebrated on the  third Thursday in November, but since 1941, when the Congress resolved to announce the fourth Thursday of November the third Thursday in November it became an annual tradition.

The dishes that are cooked on the day are traditional about a century. It seems that only the turkey connects the up-to-date menu with the crop fiesta of the newcomers. The beloved sweet course of the modern days such as pumpkin pie, were not present on the table on those days because of the lack of sugar. Such garnishes as green bean casserole and stuffing are the invention of our times and could be eaten by our ancestors.

There are many causes to be grateful on Thanksgiving Day. Our relatives and acquaintances, simple availability of eatable things, and modern conveniences are usual for us.  The very sense of the marking Thanksgiving is eternal memory of the presented rich crop and saving life of the new dwellers.