US Thanksgiving Day

THANKSGIVING Day in the United States (US) is celebrated every fourth Thursday of November. This year, it falls on November 23. Traditionally, family members gather at the dinner table where there is abundance of food and with a large roasted turkey as the center piece.

The day comes before Good Friday, which since 1952, has ushered in the Christmas shopping season in the US and has been observed to be the busiest shopping day of the year since 2005. Most major retailers open very early; more recently they are open during overnight hours, and give attractive promos to the bargain seekers. The day is marked with parades in some cities and town, and grand fireworks display.

There are claims that the first Thanksgiving Day took place in 1598 in the city of El Paso, Texas, while another early event was held in 1619 in the Virginia Colony. There are also claims that the origins of this celebration can be traced to the harvest celebration that the Pilgrims held in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1621. However, their first true thanksgiving is believed to have taken place in 1623, when the Pilgrims gave thanks through a special church service for rain that had ended a long period of drought.

In the decades that followed, particularly by the second half of the 1600s, thanksgiving rituals for good harvests became more prevalent and started to become annual events. George Washington, the first US president, proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day in 1789 as he called upon his countrymen to acknowledge God by way of devoting a day to “public thanksgiving and prayer.” The practice gained wide support in many communities in the US in the years that ensued. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a presidential proclamation making Thanksgiving a national holiday. He asked his fellow citizens “to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving and praise …” It was not until 1941, however, that the US Congress designated the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day, thus creating a federal holiday.

We greet the American people and government led by President Donald Trump on the occasion of US Thanksgiving Day.