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Thanksgiving Day

by Sudha Chandrasekaran
(Coimbatore, India)

Every year on the fourth Thursday in November, Americans express gratitude for their good fortune and celebrate the Thanks giving day. The united States of America is a land of Immigrants and is known as the Land of Milk and Honey. Most of the settlers who came to America probably had known some form of thanksgiving day in their homelands. Hence it is not surprising that they transplanted this custom to the New World.


The Harvest Festivals: We often think of Thanksgiving as an American, begun by the Pilgrims in Plymouth in 1621. Actually a thanksgiving for the annual harvest is one of the oldest holidays known to mankind, though celebrated on different dates. In ancient Egypt, and in Greece, the harvest festival was celebrated with great rejoicing. The Hindus and the Chinese observe the completed harvest with a holiday. And the Jews celebrate the gathering of the crops.

Symbol of Thanks giving: The cornucopia.

A cornucopia, also called a horn of plenty, is a symbol of abundance taken from an ancient legend. Thousands of years ago, the people of Greece believed that their god, Zeus, was reared by a beautiful maiden. As the story goes, she fed the infant Zeus an endless supply of goat's milk from a cornucopia or a goat's horn.

As centuries passed, most people forgot this ancient legend, but the cornucopia remained a symbol of an endless supply of food or drink-horn of plenty. As the history of the United States unfolded, the cornucopia became a symbol for Thanksgiving, the day set aside in thanks for abundance.

A typical Thanksgiving meal in the United States includes turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rolls. Today the holiday traditionally revolves around sharing a hearty meal featuring such favorites as turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Before the meal begins, families or friends usually pause to give thanks for their blessings, including the joy of being united for the occasion.

The Americans teach younger generation to express gratitude for all the blessings in their life by helping those who are less fortunate than themselves. Many people, due to circumstances such as age, illness or homelessness, may not have the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving with loved ones. Several people celebrate the holidays by volunteering to serve dinner at a local shelter, visiting a local nursing home, inviting a neighbour or someone they know is alone to their family's Thanksgiving celebration, etc.

Thanksgiving is the most important holiday of the year. Many Americans take a day of vacation on the following Friday to make a four-day weekend, and some companies recognize the day after Thanksgiving as a company holiday.

Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada. It is a statutory holiday throughout all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces. During the American Revolution, Americans who remained loyal to England moved to Canada where they brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada. There are many similarities between the two Thanksgivings such as the cornucopia and the pumpkin pie.

Thanksgiving Day is typically observed only in America. They relish the stories of the Pilgrims, with those strange hats and buckle shoes, the Native Americans, the wild turkeys and the huge feasts and are enjoyed by one and all. The scenes associated with Thanksgiving Day are re-enacted in churches and schools across the country by children of all ages. It is a warm and friendly season of the year and is a secular holiday based upon a historical event.

The merriment of the harvest festivals is older than recorded human history. And the merriment of the harvest holiday is likely to continue, the world over, as long as men obtain their food from the earth. It is observed in India as Makara Sankranthi.

Kids jump for joy at the thought of Halloween, for they enjoy the costumes almost as much as overdose on sugar and chocolate. Christmas is grand, and Easter has its fans, too, but I still say Thanksgiving is more important. Why? That is because the two most important words in the English language are "Thank You" – the ultimate in positive thinking. This is true in every walk of life whether it be business success or social pleasure or even for self-actualization. Thank you is a bonding phrase. Giving thanks is most important on a personal level for our own pursuit of happiness.

Whatever you have, you can either appreciate or not. If you appreciate it -- I mean really notice that you have it, that it is good, that you feel good about having it -- it will bring you happiness. However, if you get used to it, take it for granted, and focus on things you do not have, what you do have just will not bring you happiness.

Appreciation is the key to happiness. Whatever you truly and proactively appreciate, will bring you joy. But in this fast-paced, dog-eat-dog, over-stimulated society, how can we appreciate anything? Sadly, many of us who have the most to be grateful for express gratitude the least and feel the least appreciation. It seems the more we have, the more we want. The more we want, the less we appreciate what we have. The less we appreciate, the less value there is to having anything, which may explain why we keep wanting more.

The secret to feeling the appreciation we often overlook is in expressing our gratitude vocally or in writing. How can we possibly fail to appreciate something when we say "Thank you" for it and focus our attention on the appreciation? The celebration of Thanksgiving is a perfect reminder and opportunity for all of us to stop and think about how often we say thanks for things throughout the year. Better yet, how often do we say thanks every day?

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