THANKSGIVING DAY

Thanksgiving Day is a holiday in the United States. It now comes on the fourth Thursday in November. This is a day for the whole family.

Thanksgiving is a harvest festival and one of the oldest celebrations in the world. The original celebration in the United States was held in 1621 after the first harvest in New England. The Pilgrims had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower, arriving December 21,1620. Only half of the settlers survived the heartbreaking winter. But the first harvest, fortunate­ly, was good. There were some twenty acres of Indian corn that had grown abundantly, the seeds having been given to the Pilgrims by the Indians.

The date of this first feast is not known and there is no record that it was called «thanksgiving». But two years later the Pilgrims set apart a day of thanks for rain that ended a long, dry period. In 1951, the United States Congress named the fourth Thursday of November a Thanksgiving Day.

Canada has long celebrated a Thanksgiving Day. It is now always the second Monday in October. They also like turkey, served with fresh vegetables and fruits. Many people go to the church in the morn­ing. The first annual Thanksgiving for all the Canadian provinces was October 9, 1879.