I wish each and every one of you a wonderful Thanksgiving, no matter how you are spending it or with whom. I want all of you to know I am grateful for you, and I am so happy I have met you all through blogging, to my many readers I am abundantly grateful for you too. I wish you and your families, good health, and many years of happiness. God bless you all!
Where does Thanksgiving come from?
The first records of the word thanksgiving come from around 1530. The word has been used as the name of a holiday since the 1600s. The first records of the term Thanksgiving Day come from around the 1670s.
The history of the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. is often traced back to the 1621 harvest meal that is believed to have been attended by Pilgrim colonists in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, and members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Native Americans. While historians do believe that the two groups were in fact present together at that time, many of the details surrounding their relations and the nature of the meeting have been mythologized. There is certainly no evidence that the event was seen as the start of a holiday tradition at the time.
The first official national Thanksgiving holiday was set by President George Washington in 1789, but it was a one-time event. It wasn’t until 1863 that Thanksgiving was officially declared as an annual national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln. But the holiday was not connected to the history of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag until later. The holiday remained on the fourth Thursday of November until 1939, when it was moved to the third Thursday of November. It went back to being on the fourth Thursday in 1942.
Thanksgiving became an annual national holiday in Canada in 1879 and was set as the second Monday in October in 1957. Earlier celebrations of Thanksgiving in Canada were inspired by the U.S. holiday. Today, it’s often celebrated similarly, with family gatherings and large meals.
