Thanksgiving Blessings

From colonial times to the present, this holiday has always been a time to say thanks

By TIME For Kids

Americans have always been hungry for the holidays. After all, a big Thanksgiving feast is one of our country's oldest traditions, older than America itself. Thankfully, the spirit behind Thanksgiving has never changed, either. It has always been a special time to be grateful for the blessings of the past year.

The History Behind the Holiday

The feast that has become known as the First Thanksgiving was actually a harvest festival celebrated in December of 1621. That's when English settlers in Plymouth, Massachusetts, gave thanks for the progress they had made after a harsh winter in their new country. Guests at outdoor tables gobbled up ducks, geese, turkeys, clams, eels, fish, wild plums, corn bread and other goodies. About 90 Native Americans also came and brought five deer to add to the feast. The festival lasted for three days.

Thanksgiving customs spread and expanded along with the rest of America. After the American Revolution, George Washington proclaimed that the first national Thanksgiving would be on November 26, 1789. In the decades to follow, however, people celebrated Thanksgiving locally and with no official date.

A women's magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale wanted to change this. After years of drumming up support, she finally persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to proclaim the last Thursday in November 1863 as a national day of Thanksgiving. It stayed that way for 75 years afterward until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt set it one week earlier. He wanted to lengthen the shopping period before Christmas to encourage gift-buyers and help businesses. So Congress ruled that, after 1941, Thanksgiving would be an official federal holiday falling each year on the fourth Thursday of November. This year we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26.

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