Thanksgiving Day

Article: Thanksgiving Day
Author: Nicky Sinha Francis
Published: 28th November 2024

Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil, Germany and the Philippines. It is also observed in the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. Various similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday.

The Origin of Thanksgiving

In 1620, as the legend goes, a boat filled with more than 100 people sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World. This religious group had begun to question the beliefs of the Church of England and they wanted to separate from it. The Pilgrims settled in what is now the state of Massachusetts. Their first winter in the New World was difficult. They had arrived too late to grow many crops, and without fresh food, half the colony died from disease. The following spring, the Wampanoag Iroquois tribe taught them how to grow corn (maize), a new food for the colonists. They showed them other crops to grow in the unfamiliar soil and how to hunt and fish.

In the autumn of 1621, bountiful crops of corn, barley, beans, and pumpkins were harvested. The colonists had much to be thankful for, so a feast was planned. They invited the local Iroquois chief and 90 members of his tribe.

The Indigenous peoples brought deer to roast with the turkeys and other wild game offered by the colonists. The colonists learned how to cook cranberries and different kinds of corn and squash dishes from them. In the following years, many of the original colonists celebrated the autumn harvest with a feast of thanks.

Symbols of Thanksgiving

The Thanksgiving Day of Hale and Lincoln was a domestic event, a day of family homecoming, a mythical and nostalgic idea of the hospitality, civility and happiness of the American family.

The purpose of the festival was no longer a communal celebration, but rather a domestic event, carving out a sense of national identity and welcoming home family members. Homey domestic symbols traditionally served at Thanksgiving festivals include:

• Turkey, corn (or maize), pumpkins and cranberry sauce are symbols that represent the first Thanksgiving. These symbols are frequently seen on holiday decorations and greeting cards.
• The use of corn meant the survival of the colonies. Flint corn is often used as a table or door decoration representing the harvest and the fall season.
• Sweet-sour cranberry sauce, or cranberry jelly, which some historians argue was included in the first Thanksgiving feast, is still served today. The cranberry is a small, sour berry. It grows in bogs, or muddy areas, in Massachusetts and other New England states.
• Indigenous peoples used cranberries to treat infections. They used the juice to dye their rugs and blankets. They taught the colonists how to cook the berries with sweetener and water to make a sauce. Indigenous peoples called it “ibimi” which means “bitter berry.” When the colonists saw it, they named it “crane-berry” because the flowers of the berry bent the stalk over, and it resembled the long-necked bird called a crane.
• The berries are still grown in New England. Very few people know, however, that before the berries are put in bags to be sent to the rest of the country, each berry must bounce at least four inches high to make sure they are not too ripe.

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

The year was 1924. The place was New York City. A group of animals from the Central Park Zoo marched down a street in Harlem accompanied by a very special group of people: A handful of immigrant Macy’s employees who wanted to express how thankful they were for living in the United States that year. And thus, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade was born.

While the annual tradition now features A-list stars, Broadway performances and millions of spectators watching from their living rooms, the parade had humble beginnings, as outlined in the 2016 book Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade: A New York City Holiday Tradition by former PEOPLE founding editor Stephen M. Silverman.

Want to impress your Thanksgiving guests with some fascinating facts about the event, including details about the oldest balloon to fly in Macy’s Thanksgiving parade? We’ve got you covered.

The 2023 edition airs Thursday, Nov. 23, from 8:30 a.m. to noon on NBC and Peacock in all time zones.

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