Thanksgiving (United States)

Thanksgiving
The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth, oil on canvas, by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, 1914
Observed byUnited States
TypeNational
CelebrationsGiving thanks, prayer, feasting, spending time with family, religious services, football games, parades[1][a]
DateFourth Thursday in November
2023 dateNovember 23  (2023-11-23)
2024 dateNovember 28  (2024-11-28)
2025 dateNovember 27  (2025-11-27)
2026 dateNovember 26  (2026-11-26)
FrequencyAnnual
Related to
Thanksgiving at Plymouth, oil on canvas by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe, 1925 National Museum of Women in the Arts

Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.[2] It is sometimes called American Thanksgiving (outside the United States) to distinguish it from the Canadian holiday of the same name and related celebrations in other regions. It originated as a day of thanksgiving and harvest festival, with the theme of the holiday revolving around giving thanks and the centerpiece of celebrations remaining a Thanksgiving dinner.[3][4] The dinner traditionally consists of foods indigenous to the Americas: turkey, potatoes (usually mashed or sweet), squash, corn (maize), green beans, cranberries (typically as cranberry sauce), and pumpkin pie. Other Thanksgiving customs include charitable organizations offering thanksgiving dinner for the poor, attending religious services, and watching television events such as Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and America's Thanksgiving Parade as well as NFL football games.[1] Thanksgiving is regarded as the beginning of the holiday season, with the day following it, Black Friday, said to be the busiest shopping day of the year in the United States.

New England and Virginia colonists originally celebrated days of fasting, as well as days of thanksgiving, thanking God for blessings such as harvests, ship landings, military victories, or the end of a drought.[5] These were observed through church services, accompanied with feasts and other communal gatherings.[3][b]

The modern day Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. is a federal holiday for Americans to give thanks as the Pilgrims did with their Native American neighbors after their first harvest in Plymouth (now in Massachusetts) in November 1621.[6] This feast lasted three days and was attended by 90 Native American Wampanoag people[7][c] and 53 survivors of the Mayflower (Pilgrims).[8]

Less widely known is an earlier Thanksgiving celebration in Virginia in 1619 by English settlers who had just landed at Berkeley Hundred aboard the ship Margaret.[9]

Thanksgiving has been celebrated nationally on and off since 1789, with a proclamation by President George Washington.[10] President Thomas Jefferson chose not to observe the holiday, and its celebration was intermittent until President Abraham Lincoln, in 1863, proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens", calling on the American people to also, "with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience ... fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation". Lincoln declared it for the last Thursday in November.[11][12] On June 28, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the Holidays Act that made Thanksgiving a yearly appointed federal holiday in Washington, D.C.[13][14][15] On January 6, 1885, an act by Congress made Thanksgiving, and other federal holidays, a paid holiday for all federal workers throughout the United States.[16] Under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the date was moved to one week earlier, observed between 1939 and 1941 amid significant controversy. From 1942 onwards, Thanksgiving, by an act of Congress received a permanent observation date, the fourth Thursday in November, no longer at the discretion of the president.[17][18]

  1. ^ a b c Counihan, Carole (October 24, 2013). Food in the USA: A Reader. Routledge. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-135-32359-2.
  2. ^ Brown, Tanya Ballard (November 21, 2012). "How Did Thanksgiving End Up On The Fourth Thursday?". NPR.
  3. ^ a b c Forbes, Bruce David (October 27, 2015). America's Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories. University of California Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-0-520-28472-2.
  4. ^ Garrison, Greg (November 27, 2019). "Saying grace is a Thanksgiving tradition, like turkey". Advance Publications. Retrieved November 23, 2023. Family gatherings on Thanksgiving in Alabama usually have one ingredient that's as common as turkey: saying grace. In houses that say a blessing over the food, it's common that no one's allowed to take a bite until the blessing has been said. In the South, a Thanksgiving blessing usually involves some extemporaneous praying by someone who knows how. For some, saying grace before meals is a year-round tradition.
  5. ^ "Thanksgiving Day". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 21, 2016.
  6. ^ Bradford 1952, pp. 85–92.
  7. ^ a b Winslow, Edward (1622). Mourt's Relation (PDF). p. 133. Retrieved November 20, 2013.
  8. ^ "Primary sources for the 'first Thanksgiving' at Plymouth" (PDF). Pilgrim Hall Museum. Retrieved November 26, 2009. ... The 53 Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving ...
  9. ^ "The first Thanksgiving". National Geographic. Archived from the original on March 7, 2021. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  10. ^ Frank, Priscilla (November 28, 2013). "Christie's is selling the proclamation that established Thanksgiving, signed by George Washington". HuffPost. Retrieved December 6, 2013.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference NetINS Showcase-AB was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  12. ^ President Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day proclamation of October 3, 1863. Presidential Proclamations, 1778–2006. United States National Archives and Records Administration. Presidential Proclamation 106. Archived from the original on January 25, 2017. Retrieved January 10, 2017.
  13. ^ Statutes at Large 1871.
  14. ^ Stathis 1999, pp. 6–7.
  15. ^ Belz 2017.
  16. ^ Straus 2014, pp. 1–2.
  17. ^ "The year we had two Thanksgivings". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Marist College. Retrieved November 26, 2010.
  18. ^ Straus 2014, pp. 4–5.


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