where did thanksgiving originate?
923480
Go to the library and take out a children's book on "The First Thanksgiving" between the indians and the pilgrims.\n\nIt's the way they first made friends!!!!   The indians invited the english to their bountiful "harvest".
240
Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the 2nd Monday of October.\n\n"The farmers in Europe held celebrations at harvest time. They filled a curved goat's horn with fruit and grain to give thanks for their good fortune and the abundance of food. They brought this tradition when they came to Canada.\n\nDuring the American Revolution, Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada where they brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada."\n\nMore information about the history of Canadian Thanksgiving:\n\nhttp://www.geocities.com/ouravonlea/canadian-thanksgiving.html
841994
In Canada Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday in October. Unlike the American tradition of remembering Pilgrims and settling in the New World, Canadians give thanks for a successful harvest. The harvest season falls earlier in Canada compared to the United States due to the simple fact that Canada is further north. \n\nThe history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an English explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. He did not succeed but he did establish a settlement in Northern America. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now called Newfoundland, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving. Other settlers arrived and continued these ceremonies. He was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him - Frobisher Bay. \n\nAt the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed 'The Order of Good Cheer' and gladly shared their food with their Indian neighbours.\n\nAfter the Seven Year's War ended in 1763, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving.\n\nDuring the American Revolution, Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada where they brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada. There are many similarities between the two Thanksgivings such as the cornucopia and the pumpkin pie.\n\nEventually in 1879, Parliament declared November 6th a day of Thanksgiving and a national holiday. Over the years many dates were used for Thanksgiving, the most popular was the 3rd Monday in October. After World War I, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving were celebrated on the Monday of the week in which November 11th occurred. Ten years later, in 1931, the two days became separate holidays and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.\n\nFinally, on January 31st, 1957, Parliament proclaimed...\n\n"A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed  ... to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October.\n\nHope this helps.
518720
Even though not all Americans are Christians and Thanksgiving can be celebrated by any religion or non religion, Christmas is still wildly more popular than Thanksgiving in the US. Thanksgiving happens to be my favorite holiday because it is not as commercial as Christmas or the other holidays and it is all about family. I come from a large family and we have wonderful Thanksgivings. Also, I love turkey and pecan pie and broccoli casserole and spinach dip and stuffing and bread rolls with real butter and on and on and on. \n\nHave you ever celebrated Thanksgiving? I live abroad and I've missed many other holidays, but I've never let Thanksgiving go by without celebrating it with my friends. It is TOTALLY appropriate to the spirit of Thanksgiving to celebrate it with people who know nothing about the day. I love introducing my traditions to my new friends around the world.
838117
Thanksgiving is tradition, thankfulness, and family.\n\nReligious households see Thanksgiving Day as an expression of faith and thankfulness to God at the end of the harvest season. \n\nThanksgiving is a time to gather with your family and or friends and spend the day together.  \nPeople catch up on what's been happening in the lives of their children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and more.\n \nThanksgiving is a holiday for giving thanks, spending time with loved ones and indulging in delicious food that most people only eat once or twice a year.
841766
There is no religious symbolism but there is a kind of cultural symbolism - cranberries are grown in Massachusetts - where the Pilgrims landed.  Pumpkin is part of the fall harvest in New England. At the first thanksgiving, fowls were served (probably not only turkeys)....so there are a lot of ties today to that first community meal with the Indians and Pilgrims in the 17th century....\n\nsee\n\nhttp://pilgrims.net/plymouth/thanksgiving.htm
291565
staart from how and where they originated or why they left wherever they came from
781305
Does 'nt the word holiday originate from Holy Day. What English people call a holiday (as in seaside) the Americans call a vacation.So calling Christmas a holiday seems ok to me.
912801
Thanksgiving is the national day of...thanksgiving.  It was made a holiday by President Lincoln to help heal the scars of the Civil War.  Meant to symbolize the thanksgiving feast the Pilgrims had with the Native Americans after the winter and near-drought of the first year of settlement (the Native Americans basically kept the settlers alive, introducing them to native crops such as corn and lima beans and regional seafood like lobster and cod), the feast is actually an invitation for families to come back together and for the nation itself to put aside the bickering for just one day and eat and enjoy each other just for the sake of family.  Unfortunately, the pureness of the day is tainted by the fact that it marks the beginning of the Christmas buying season, but what can we do about that?  Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November.\n\nI'm not sure what I'm thankful for yet; I haven't made up my mind.  There are so many things I am grateful for, but that one thing I am thankful for...I need to put more thought into it.
838201
What's wrong with you? Thanksgiving is a commemoration of the first successful harvest of the Mayflower Pilgrims in New England. If you knew anything at all, you would know that they travelled to the New World to escape religious intolerance in England. But still you ask how we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK. The USA and UK may have the same language, but that does not mean that they will necessarily have the same traditions.\n\nThe nearest thing we have to the USA's Thanksgiving is Harvest Festival celebrated in churches, and usually in September. See this website for more details: http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Harvest.html\n\nHalloween was hardly celebrated in the UK before the 1980s. There were some kids' parties, with children dressed as witches, and apple bobbing. Swedes (Swedish turnips) were used for making lantern faces illuminated by a candle. Some older kids would remove garden gates from their hinges, and hide them - all trick and no treat. And that was about it.\n\nThe reason for that is that the UK has a more established celebration on November 5th - Guy Fawkes Night (aka Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night). See this website for further information: http://www.bonefire.org/guy/ . Furthermore children used to collect money in the street - see the "Penny for the guy" tradition as outlined in this webpage:  http://homepages.tesco.net/~derek.berger/holidays/guyfawkes.html\n\nHowever things changed in the 1980s following the release of the films E.T. and Halloween. As a result of the 1982 film, E.T., (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083866/) more children began dressing up in spooky costumes and knocking on doors for sweets. A consequence of the 1978 film, Halloween (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077651/), was that a public demand for pumpkins was created, and they are now used for making lantern faces. Adults also have costumed Halloween parties. Nowadays Halloween here is no different from the USA.\n\nI hope this answers your query.
968440
It is a holiday that began with the first English settlers in America. Their voyage was long and hard, and after they arrived, they nearly starved in the first year. But the second year they had an excellent harvest, and they were thus blessed with a relative bounty of food to eat. They decided to have a party to celebrate 1) their good fortune for a good harvest, 2) the now fairly obvious fact that the colony would be successful, and 3) their faith in God, not necessarily in that order. They invited the local Indians to the celebration and they all had a very good time. Thereafter they decided to repeat the party every year, to mostly celebrate their good harvest. In today's world, it is a family gathering time that is usually free from the commercialism that has grown up around Christmas, Easter, the Fourth of July, etc. The traditional dish is roast turkey, because it is a large bird that is native to America and was thought to be the main dish at the original celebration. Other traditional foods for Thanksgiving include pumpkin pie and perhaps something made out of corn (maize), something made from sweet potatoes, and something made out of cranberries since these were the newfound foods that are native to the American continent that the early settlers were able to obtain in quantity, and they were largely new and different from what they were used to eating in the British Isles. If you are a new arrival in America, please have a happy Thanksgiving! Perhaps you can also celebrate your own safe travel across the Atlantic to the new world!
968759
In Mexico, no. Thanksgiving is strictly an American holiday, though its roots go back to ancient harvest festivals celebrated around the world.\n\nMexican-Americans, as is the case with other American ethnic groups, quite often celebrate Thanksgiving. \n\nAs to the question of whether Mexican-Americans consume so-called "traditional" Thanksgiving foods, to be quite honest, everybody's Thanksgiving table is different. There is no right or wrong item to be found on everybody's table. The actual menu isn't important. \n\nI imagine some Mexican-American families do the turkey and dressing thing, while others have a more ethnic menu, according to their own tastes. And regardless of whether the whole turkey and dressing protocol is followed, there are surely always some family recipes that make it to the feast.
792280
thanksgiving day in canada is called columbus day in the usa.  boxing day is always dec26
401056
Almost all of the customs here in the US (other than Native American) come from somewhere else. Most of our major holidays are based on traditions from other countries; we have st. patrick's day, valentines day, christmas, easter, cinco de mayo, and many others that were all brought here from elsewhere. We are a malting pot, and all the settlers brought their customs and traditions with them. Different parts of the country may place emphasis on different cultural traditions depending on the general base of their population or the population that settled that area.
921937
It is a day to celebrate thanks it began 1621 when settlers had celebration with Indians to show their thankfulness for a great harvest to help them survive the winter, now it is a once a year reminder to share our gratitude to/for the people/things we are grateful for.
829602
The Lions played their first Thanksgiving game back in 1934.  The Lions were competing with the Tigers, and owner G.A. Richards wanted to do something to draw a larger crowd.  So, he held the game on Thanksgiving to avoid competing with the Tigers, and he also convinced NBC to broadcast the game nationwide.  The largest crowd during the previous season had been 15,000, and this first Thanksgiving Day game drew 26,000.\n\nhttp://www.detroitlions.com/document_display.cfm?cont_id=147421\n\nThe Cowboys were added in 1966 because Pete Rozelle was looking for a second team, and his good friend Tex Schramm volunteered the Cowboys.\n\nhttp://www.usafootball.com/articles/19-press-box/95-featured-articles/309-turkey-day-football-traditions.php
893601
its an american holiday celebrating the pilgrims and indians gathering to share a meal after a bountiful summer, the indians, or native americans, taught the settlers how to hunt game in this country and how to grow corn, squash and beans and how to preserve them to last through the winter so they wouldnt starve, the pilgrims landed in the north east and it gets quite cold and snowy there in winter, they gave thanks to the Indians for their help and thanked their god that they had the help of the native peoples to help them survive.