Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Origin of Thanksgiving• Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in the United States as a day of

giving thanks.• It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. • Thanksgiving history in North America comes from Protestant English

traditions.

Origin of Thanksgiving: Protestants• Before 1536, there were 95 Church holidays, plus 52 Sundays, when

people had to go church, could not go to work, and spent a lot of money on parties.

• After King Henry VIII formed his own church, there were only 27 holidays.

• Protestants wanted to get rid of every holiday, including Christmas and Easter, so they changed the church holidays into Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving.

Plymouth Thanksgiving• In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is

commonly traced to a poorly documented 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts.

• The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest.

• The feast was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest.

Plymouth Thanksgiving• It lasted three days, and it was attended by 90 Native Americans and

53 Pilgrims (out of the original 100).• The feast was cooked by the four adult Pilgrim women who survived

their first winter in the New World.

Plymouth Thanksgiving• Squanto, a Patuxet Native American

who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, had taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them.

• The Wampanoag leader, Massasoit, had donated food stores to the new colony during the first winter when supplies brought from England were insufficient.

George Washington• As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the

first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".

The Day• From the time of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln, the

date Thanksgiving was observed varied from state to state. The final Thursday in November had become the customary date in most U.S. states by the beginning of the 19th century.

Abraham Lincoln• Thanksgiving was first celebrated on the

same date by all states in 1863 when it became an official Federal holiday.

• Federal: all of the states which form a single country but have their own internal affairs.

• Author Sarah Josepha Hale wrote letters to politicians for 40 years trying to make it an official holiday.

Abraham Lincoln• During the Civil War (1861-1865),

President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens", to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.

• Lincoln was trying to unite the North and the South.

• The Confederate States of America refused to acknowledge the holiday, and so it wasn’t celebrated until the 1870s.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt• On December 26,

1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday.

Presidents Today• In modern times the President of the United States will "pardon" a

turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.

Obama Pardons Turkey Today• http://youtu.be/QZlJW1Ygu20

Thanksgiving Day• On Thanksgiving Day, families usually gather for a large dinner. • The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods

of the year.• Thanksgiving is a four-day or five-day weekend vacation for schools

and colleges.

Macy’s Parade• Since 1924, in New York

City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held annually every Thanksgiving Day.

• The float that traditionally ends the Macy's Parade is the Santa Claus float, the arrival of which is an unofficial sign of the beginning of the Christmas season.

1925, Santa Claus Float

Football!• American football is an important part of Thanksgiving.• Professional football games are often held on Thanksgiving Day.• In Oregon, we have a CIVIL WAR!!!!! The University of Oregon and

Oregon State University play their football game the day after Thanksgiving. It’s been played for 120 years!

(GO DUCKS GO! FIGHT DUCKS FIGHT! WIN DUCKS WIN!!!!!)

FOOD!!!• Baked or roasted turkey is usually the featured item on any

Thanksgiving feast table.• So we call it “Turkey Day”!• Other foods are: stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes,

cranberry sauce, sweet corn, various fall vegetables, pumpkin pie, and apple pie.

• All of these are actually native to the Americas or were introduced as a new food source to the Europeans when they arrived.

“Jingle Bells” – A Thanksgiving Song!

Written by James Lord Pierpont (1822–1893) and published under the title "One Horse Open Sleigh" in the autumn of 1857.