November 13, 2001

Thanksgiving Blessings

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

By Mi Won Kim

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.

Giving Thanks Today
This year we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 22. It marks a time when America's heroes are giving us a reason to say thanks more than ever before. In news headlines and in our own neighborhoods, police officers, firefighters and other rescuers risk their lives for ours. These heroes are making a difference for our country every day.

A Special Delivery
To show some of America's biggest heroes how thankful YOU are, TFK News Team reporters will visit New York City firehouses before Thanksgiving. That's when they will deliver posters and albums filled with thank-you cards, letters and artwork created by TFK readers across America. (See what we've done so far.)

Be sure to visit us again later this month, when we post photos and reports from the big day.

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