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Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November (which became the uniform date country-wide in 1941). Outside the United States, it is sometimes called American Thanksgiving to distinguish it from the Canadian holiday of the same name and . The modern national celebration dates to 1863 and has been linked to the 1621 since the late 19th century. As the name implies, the theme of the holiday generally revolves around giving thanks and the centerpiece of most celebrations is a Thanksgiving dinner with family .

(2025). 9780520284722, University of California Press.

The dinner often consists of foods associated with harvest celebrations: , (usually and ), , (maize), , (typically as ), and . It has expanded over the years to include specialties from other regions of the United States, such as macaroni and cheese and in the South and wild rice stuffing in the Great Lakes region, as well as international and ethnic dishes.

Other Thanksgiving customs include charitable organizations offering Thanksgiving dinner for the poor, attending , and watching or participating in parades and American football games. Thanksgiving is also typically regarded as the beginning of the holiday shopping season, with the day after, Black Friday, often considered to be the busiest retail shopping day of the year in the United States. , the online equivalent, is held on the Monday following Thanksgiving.

History
Days of thanksgiving
Days of thanksgiving, that is, days attributed to giving thanks to deities, have existed for thousands of years and long predate the European colonization of North America. Ranging from general harvest festivals to more specific holidays related to thanking gods for the specific boons they provided to their worshipers or humanity in general such as the Tekh Festival thanking the goddess for the creation of alcohol. These were often celebrated with music, dancing, bonfires and the donning of accoutrements or costumes.

Documented thanksgiving services in what is currently the United States were conducted as early as the 16th century by the Spaniards and the French. These days of thanksgiving were celebrated through and feasting. Historian Michael Gannon claimed St. Augustine, Florida, was founded with a shared thanksgiving meal on September 8, 1565. The thanksgiving at St. Augustine was celebrated 56 years before the Puritan Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation (in what is now Massachusetts), but it did not become the origin of a national annual tradition.[1]

Thanksgiving services were routine in what became the Commonwealth of Virginia as early as 1607;

(2025). 9781604130966, Infobase Publishing.
the first permanent settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, held a thanksgiving in 1610. On December 4, 1619, 38 English settlers celebrated a thanksgiving immediately upon landing at , Charles City. The group's charter specifically required "that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantation in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God". This celebration has, since the mid 20th century, been commemorated there annually at present-day Berkeley Plantation, the ancestral home of the Harrison family of Virginia. This early commemoration created the groundwork for what would later become a national custom, emphasizing the immigrants' strong religious faith and thankfulness for their survival in the New World. Thanksgiving has developed from a local event in Virginia to a more generally known holiday across the United States.

Harvest festival observed by the Pilgrims at Plymouth
The Plymouth colonists, today known as , had settled in a part of eastern Massachusetts formerly occupied by the who had died in a devastating epidemic between 1614 and 1620. After the harsh winter of 1620–1621 killed half of the Plymouth colonists, two Native intermediaries, and (more commonly known by the diminutive variant Squanto, and the last living member of the Patuxet) came in at the request of , leader of the , to negotiate a peace treaty and establish trade relations with the colonists, as both men had some knowledge of English from previous interactions with Europeans, through both trade (Samoset) and a period of enslavement (Squanto).

Massasoit had hoped to establish a mutual protection alliance between the Wampanoag, themselves greatly weakened by the same plague that extirpated the Patuxet, and the better-armed English in their long-running rivalry with the Narragansett, who had largely been spared from the epidemic; the Wampanoag reasoned that, given that the Pilgrims had brought women and children, they had not arrived to wage war against them.

Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn and served as an interpreter for them until he too succumbed to disease a year later. The leader also gave food to the colonists when supplies brought from England proved insufficient.

Having brought in a good harvest, the Pilgrims celebrated at Plymouth for three days in the autumn of 1621. The exact time is unknown, but James Baker, a former Plimoth Plantation vice president of research, stated in 1996, "The event occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11, 1621, with the most likely time being around (Sept. 29), the traditional time." Seventeenth-century accounts do not identify this as a day of thanksgiving, but rather as a harvest celebration.

The Pilgrim feast was cooked by the four adult Pilgrim women who survived their first winter in the New World (Eleanor Billington, Elizabeth Hopkins, , and Susanna White), along with young daughters and male and female servants.

According to accounts by Wampanoag descendants, the harvest feast was originally set up for the Pilgrims alone (contrary to the common misconception that the Wampanoag were invited for their help in teaching the pilgrims their agricultural techniques). Part of the harvest celebration involved a demonstration of arms by the colonists, and the Wampanoag, having entered into a mutual protection agreement with the colonists and likely mistaking the celebratory gunfire for an attack by a common enemy, arrived fully armed. The Wampanoag were welcomed to join the celebration, as their farming and hunting techniques had produced much of the bounty for the Pilgrims, and contributed their own foods to the meal.

(2020). 9781632869258, Bloomsbury Publishing.

Most modern imaginings of the celebration promote the idea that every party involved ate solely turkey. "While the celebrants might well have feasted on wild turkey, the local diet also included fish, eels, shellfish, and a Wampanoag dish called , which the Pilgrims had adopted: boiled cornmeal mixed with vegetables and meats. There were no potatoes (an indigenous South American food not yet introduced into the global food system) and no pies (because there was no butter, wheat flour, or sugar).".

Two colonists gave personal accounts of the 1621 feast in Plymouth:

William Bradford, in Of Plymouth Plantation wrote:

, in Mourt's Relation wrote:

Debate over the "first Thanksgiving" and the invention of tradition
Jeremy Bang opines that, "Local boosters in , , and promote their own colonists, who (like many people getting off a boat) gave thanks for setting foot again on dry land."

The codification and celebration of an annual day of thanksgiving according to the Berkeley Hundred charter in Virginia prompted President John F. Kennedy to acknowledge the claims of both Massachusetts and Virginia to America's earliest celebrations. He issued Proclamation 3560 on November 5, 1963, saying: "Over three centuries ago, our forefathers in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness, set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together and for the faith which united them with their God."

However, according to historian James Baker, debates over where any "first Thanksgiving" took place on modern American territory are a "tempest in a beanpot".

(2025). 9781584658016, UPNE. .
According to Baker, "the American holiday's true origin was the New England Thanksgiving. Never coupled with a Sabbath meeting, the Pilgrim observances were special days set aside during the week for thanksgiving and praise in response to God's providence."

New England Thanksgivings
It's important to note that Baker's "New England Thanksgiving" does not refer to an annual commemoration of the Pilgrim's 1621 harvest celebration. Indeed, that 1621 event does not appear to have contributed to the early development of the modern holiday at all, as Bradford's "Of Plimoth Plantation" was not published until the 1850s and the booklet "Mourt's Relation" was typically summarized by other publications without the now-familiar thanksgiving story. In fact, by the eighteenth century, the original booklet appeared to be lost or forgotten although a copy was later rediscovered in Philadelphia in 1820, with the first full reprinting in 1841. In a footnote the editor, Alexander Young, was the first person to identify the 1621 feast as the "first Thanksgiving", but this was only because he viewed it as similar to the traditions of New England Thanksgivings that had developed independently from it over the previous two hundred years.

Those traditions, and the modern holiday, were born out of the gradual homogenization and, to a degree, secularization, of multiple, separate but related days of thanksgiving throughout New England. These days were often celebrated from early November to early to mid-December, in some cases functioning almost as a Calvinist alternative to Christmas, and typically involving a return to the family home, church services, a large meal and various diversions ranging from games and sports to formal balls. These celebrations were gradually disseminated throughout the US as New Englanders spread across the country, accelerating after the Civil War.

(2025). 9781584658016, University of New Hampshire Press ; Published by University Press of New England. .

Sarah Hale and Godey's Ladies Book
Sarah Josepha Hale, a native of New Hampshire and steeped in the traditions of a New England Thanksgiving, was the longtime editor of Godey's Ladies Book, the most widely circulated periodical in the antebellum U.S. Hale was the chief promoter of the modern idea of the holiday in the 19th century, from the foods served to the decorations to the role of women in putting it all together. Concerned by increasing factionalism in American society, Hale envisioned Thanksgiving as a commonly-celebrated, patriotic holiday that would unite Americans in purpose and values. She viewed those values as rooted in domesticity and rural simplicity over urban sophistication. As a celebration of hearth and home, she also sought to cement a role for women within the identity of the young nation. Every November, Hale would focus her monthly magazine column on Thanksgiving, positioning the celebration as a pious, patriotic holiday that lived on in the memory as a check against temptation, or as a comfort in times of trial. Hale and Godey's led the way in creating a standardized celebration, which in turn created a standardized celebrant — a standardized and true American. Her vision aimed at a broad audience: The stories in Godey's depicted Black servants, Roman Catholics, and Southerners celebrating Thanksgiving, and becoming more American (which for Hale meant becoming more like White Protestant Northerners) by doing so.

Her efforts sought to expand the holiday from a regional celebration to a national one not only through advocacy in her magazine but also in direct appeals to several U.S. presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, who began annual national proclamations of autumn Thanksgivings in 1863.

Enter the Pilgrims
While the Pilgrim's story did not itself create the modern Thanksgiving holiday, it did become inextricably linked with it in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was largely due to the introduction in U.S. schools of "an annual sequence of classroom holiday activities through which civic education and American patriotism were indoctrinated."

The late 19th and early 20th century were a time of massive immigration to the U.S. The changing demographics prompted not only xenophobic responses in the form of restrictive immigration measures, but also a greater push towards the Americanization of newcomers and the conscious formulation of a shared cultural heritage. Holiday observances in classrooms, including those for Washington's birthday, Memorial Day, and Flag Day "introduced youngsters to the central themes of American History and, in theory, strengthened their character and prepared them to become loyal citizens." Thanksgiving, with its non-denominational character, colonial harvest themes and images of Pilgrims and Indians breaking bread together peacefully, allowed the country to tell a story of its origins—people leaving far off lands, struggling under harsh conditions and ultimately being welcomed to America's bounty—that children, particularly immigrant children, could easily understand and share with their families.

(2025). 9781584658016, University of New Hampshire Press ; Published by University Press of New England. .
The holiday materials were often disseminated in the form of booklets containing poetry and songs and crafts. Thanksgiving pageants at schools often involved a recreation of the imagined "First Thanksgiving" to reinforce the Pilgrim narrative and the importance of the story to an understanding of U.S. history. These pageants continue in some parts of the U.S. today.

Thanksgiving proclamations in the early United States
The Revolutionary War Era to the Civil War
The First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was given by the Continental Congress in 1777 from its temporary location in York, Pennsylvania, while the British occupied the national capital at Philadelphia. Delegate created the first draft. Congress then adopted the final version:
For as much as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of: And it had pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary war, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success:

It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these United States to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth Day of December next, for Solemn Thanksgiving and Praise: That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please God through the Merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole: To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty God, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, Independence and Peace: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth "in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.

And it is further recommended, That servile Labor, and such Recreation, as, though at other Times innocent, may be unbecoming the Purpose of this Appointment, be omitted on so solemn an Occasion.

George Washington, leader of the revolutionary forces in the American Revolutionary War, proclaimed a Thanksgiving in December 1777 as a victory celebration honoring the defeat of the British at Saratoga.

The Continental Congress, the legislative body that governed the United States from 1774 to 1789, issued several "national days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving", a practice that was continued by presidents Washington and Adams under the Constitution, and has manifested itself in the established American observances of Thanksgiving and the National Day of Prayer today.

This proclamation was published in The Independent Gazetteer, or the Chronicle of Freedom, on November 5, 1782, the first being observed on November 28, 1782:

By the United States in Congress assembled, PROCLAMATION.

It being the indispensable duty of all nations, not only to offer up their supplications to Almighty God, the giver of all good, for His gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner, to give Him praise for His goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of His Providence in their behalf; therefore, the United States in Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many instances of Divine goodness to these States in the course of the important conflict, in which they have been so long engaged; the present happy and promising state of public affairs, and the events of the war in the course of the year now drawing to a close; particularly the harmony of the public Councils which is so necessary to the success of the public cause; the perfect union and good understanding which has hitherto subsisted between them and their allies, notwithstanding the artful and unwearied attempts of the common enemy to divide them; the success of the arms of the United States and those of their allies; and the acknowledgment of their Independence by another European power, whose friendship and commerce must be of great and lasting advantage to these States; Do hereby recommend it to the inhabitants of these States in general, to observe and request the several states to interpose their authority, in appointing and commanding the observation of THURSDAY the TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF NOVEMBER next as a day of SOLEMN THANKSGIVING to GOD for all His mercies; and they do further recommend to all ranks to testify their gratitude to God for His goodness by a cheerful obedience to His laws and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.

Done in Congress at , the eleventh day of October, in the year of our LORD, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, and of our Sovereignty and Independence, the seventh.

, President. CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary.

On Thursday, September 24, 1789, the first House of Representatives voted to recommend the First Amendment of the newly drafted Constitution to the states for ratification. The next day, Congressman from New Jersey proposed that the House and Senate jointly request of President Washington to proclaim a day of thanksgiving for "the many signal favors of Almighty God". Boudinot said he "could not think of letting the session pass over without offering an opportunity to all the citizens of the United States of joining, with one voice, in returning to Almighty God their sincere thanks for the many blessings he had poured down upon them."

As President, on October 3, 1789, George Washington made the following proclamation and created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America:

On January 1, 1795, Washington proclaimed a Thanksgiving Day to be observed on Thursday, February 19.

President declared Thanksgivings in 1798 and 1799.

As was a and a skeptic of the idea of divine intervention, he did not declare any thanksgiving days during his presidency, giving his reasons thus:

Gentlemen,

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th. Jefferson, Jan 1. 1802

renewed the tradition in 1814, in response to resolutions of Congress, at the close of the War of 1812. , Governor of the Commonwealth of , declared the holiday in 1813, "for a day of public thanksgiving and prayer" for Thursday, November 25 of that year.

Madison also declared the holiday twice in 1815; however, neither of these was celebrated in autumn. In 1816, Governor Plumer of New Hampshire appointed Thursday, November 14 to be observed as a day of Public Thanksgiving and Governor Brooks of Massachusetts appointed Thursday, November 28 to be "observed throughout that State as a day of Thanksgiving".

A thanksgiving day was annually appointed by the governor of New York, , in 1817. In 1830, the New York State Legislature officially sanctioned thanksgiving as a holiday, making New York the first state outside of New England to do so.

Lincoln and the Civil War
In the middle of the American Civil War, President , prompted by a series of editorials written by Sarah Josepha Hale, began the regular practice of proclaiming a national Thanksgiving. His first proclamation, in April 1862 after the Union victories at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, the fall of Nashville, and another victory at Shiloh, recommended that Americans give thanks for these victories "at their next weekly assemblages." Proclamation 88--Day of Public Thanksgiving for Victories During the Civil War It was the first federal Thanksgiving declaration since Madison's in 1815. "Evolution of the Thanksgiving Proclamation", The American Presidency Project The next year, after victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, to be celebrated on the 26th, the final Thursday of November 1863. The document, written by Secretary of State William H. Seward, reads as follows:

Lincoln issued another proclamation of thanksgiving in October 1864, again for the last Thursday in November, after Union victories that included the fall of Atlanta and the capture of Mobile Bay. Proclamation 118—Thanksgiving Day, 1864

Post-Civil War era
Presidents continued to issue Thanksgiving proclamations on an annual basis, usually for the same time of year, although in 1865 picked the first Thursday in December. Proclamation 147—Thanksgiving Day, 1865

On June 28, 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed into law the Holidays Act that made Thanksgiving a yearly "appointed or remembered" federal holiday in Washington D.C. Three other holidays included in the law were , , and July 4. The law did not extend outside of Washington D.C., while the date assigned for Thanksgiving was left to the discretion of the President. In January 1879, George Washington's Birthday, February 22, was added by Congress to the federal holidays list. On January 6, 1885, a Congressional act expanded the Holidays Act to apply to all federal departments and employees throughout the nation. Federal workers received pay for all the holidays, including Thanksgiving.

During the second half of the 19th century, Thanksgiving traditions in America varied from region to region. A traditional New England Thanksgiving, for example, consisted of a raffle held on Thanksgiving Eve (in which the prizes were mainly geese or turkeys), a shooting match on Thanksgiving morning (in which turkeys and chickens were used as targets), church servicesand then the traditional feast, which consisted of some familiar Thanksgiving staples such as turkey and pumpkin pie, and some not-so-familiar dishes such as .

In New York City, people would dress up in fanciful masks and costumes and roam the streets in merry-making mobs. By the beginning of the 20th century, these mobs had morphed into Ragamuffin parades consisting mostly of children dressed as "ragamuffins" in costumes of old and mismatched adult clothes and with deliberately smudged faces, but by the late 1950s the tradition had diminished enough to only exist in its original form in a few communities around New York, with many of its traditions subsumed into the custom of trick-or-treating.

Franksgiving (1939–1941)
Abraham Lincoln's successors as president followed his example of annually declaring the final Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. But in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt broke with this tradition. November had five Thursdays that year (instead of the more-common four), Roosevelt declared the fourth Thursday as Thanksgiving rather than the fifth one. Although many popular histories state otherwise, he made clear that his plan was to establish the holiday on the next-to-last Thursday in the month instead of the last one. With the country still in the midst of The Great Depression, Roosevelt thought an earlier Thanksgiving would give merchants a longer period to sell goods before Christmas. Increasing profits and spending during this period, Roosevelt hoped, would help bring the country out of the Depression. At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered . Fred Lazarus, Jr., founder of the Federated Department Stores, is credited with convincing Roosevelt to push Thanksgiving to a week earlier to expand the shopping season, and within two years the change passed through Congress into law.

Republicans decried the change, calling it an affront to the memory of Lincoln. People began referring to November 30 as the "Republican Thanksgiving" and November 23 as the "Democratic Thanksgiving" or "".

1942 to present
On October 6, 1941, both houses of the United States Congress passed a joint resolution fixing the traditional last-Thursday date for the holiday beginning in 1942. However, in December of that year the Senate passed an amendment to the resolution that split the difference by requiring that Thanksgiving be observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, in order to prevent confusion on the occasional years in which November has five Thursdays. The amendment also passed the House, and on December 26, 1941, President Roosevelt signed this bill, for the first time making the date of Thanksgiving a matter of federal law and fixing the day as the fourth Thursday of November.

Traditional celebrations and solemnities
Foods of the season
Turkey, usually roasted and (but sometimes instead), is typically the featured item on most Thanksgiving feast tables. 40 million turkeys were consumed on Thanksgiving Day alone in 2019. With 85 percent of Americans partaking in the meal, an estimated 276 million Americans dine on the festive poultry, spending an expected $983.3 million on turkeys for Thanksgiving in 2024.

with , , , , , various fall vegetables, squash, and are among the side dishes commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner.

Giving thanks and religious activity
The tradition of giving thanks is continued today in many forms, most notably the attendance of religious services, as well as the saying of a mealtime prayer before Thanksgiving dinner.

At home, it is a holiday tradition in many families to begin the Thanksgiving dinner by saying grace (a prayer before or after a meal). Before praying, it is a common practice at the dining table for "each person to tell one specific reason they're thankful to God that year".

Joy Fisher, a Baptist writer, states that "this holiday takes on a spiritual emphasis and includes recognition of the source of the blessings they enjoy year rounda loving God." In the same vein, Hesham A. Hassaballa, an American Muslim scholar and physician, has written that Thanksgiving "is wholly consistent with Islamic principles" and that "few things are more Islamic than thanking God for His blessings". Similarly many Americans also celebrate the holiday by "giving thanks to Almighty".

Many houses of worship offer and events on Thanksgiving themes the weekend before, the day of, or the weekend after Thanksgiving.

(2025). 9781568543680, Liturgy Training Publications.
Thanksgiving is included in the Revised Common Lectionary, which provides scriptures for Thanksgiving services. It is the last entry on the liturgical calendar before the start of the following Sunday. Revised Common Lectionary Scripture Citations for Year C, 2021–2022. Vanderbilt University library. Retrieved November 27, 2021.

Charity
The poor are often provided with food at Thanksgiving time. Most communities have annual that collect non-perishable packaged and canned foods, and corporations sponsor charitable distributions of staple foods and Thanksgiving dinners. The enlists volunteers to serve Thanksgiving dinners to hundreds of people in different locales; the Salvation Army also uses Thanksgiving as the day it launches its annual , with the launch coinciding with a nationally televised concert. The also launches its Live United campaign on Thanksgiving.) Additionally, five days after Thanksgiving is , a celebration of charitable giving.

Parades
Since 1924, in New York City, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is held annually every Thanksgiving Day from the Upper West Side of to Macy's flagship store in , and televised nationally by . The parade features parade floats with specific themes, performances from Broadway musicals, large balloons of cartoon characters, TV personalities, and high school marching bands. The float that traditionally ends the Macy's Parade is the float, the arrival of which is an unofficial sign of the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. It is billed as the world's largest parade.

The oldest Thanksgiving Day parade is Philadelphia's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which launched in 1920. 's parade was long associated with , a prominent Macy's rival, until that store closed in 1986.

Founded in 1924, the same year as the Macy's parade, America's Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit is one of the largest parades in the country. The parade runs from Midtown to and precedes the annual Thanksgiving football game. The parade includes large balloons, marching bands, and various celebrity guests much like the Macy's parade and is nationally televised on various affiliate stations. The Mayor of Detroit closes the parade by giving a key to the city.

There are Thanksgiving parades in many other cities, including:

  • Missouri Thanksgiving Day Parade (St. Louis, Missouri)
  • America's Hometown Thanksgiving Parade (Plymouth, Massachusetts)
  • Belk Carolinas' Carrousel Parade (Charlotte, North Carolina)
  • Celebrate the Season Parade (, Pennsylvania)
  • FirstLight Federal Credit Union Parade (El Paso, Texas)
  • Holiday Parade (, Texas)
  • Chicago Thanksgiving Parade (Chicago, Illinois)
  • Santa Claus Parade (Peoria, Illinois), the nation's oldest, dating to 1887 and held the day after Thanksgiving
  • Parada de los Cerros Thanksgiving Day Parade (Fountain Hills, Arizona)
  • Parade Spectacular (Stamford, Connecticut)held the Sunday before Thanksgiving so it does not directly compete with the Macy's parade away.

Most of these parades are televised on a local station, and some have small, usually regional, syndication networks; most also carry the parades via Internet television on the TV stations' websites.

Several other parades have a loose association with Thanksgiving, thanks to 's now-discontinued All-American Thanksgiving Day Parade coverage. Parades that were covered during this era were the held in , Hawaii every September, the Toronto Santa Claus Parade in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the Opryland Aqua Parade (held from 1996 to 2001 by the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville); the Opryland parade was discontinued and replaced by a taped parade in Miami Beach, Florida in 2002.

For many years the Santa Claus Lane Parade (now Hollywood Christmas Parade) in Los Angeles was held on the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. In 1978 this was switched to the Sunday following the holiday.

Sports
American football
American football is an important part of many Thanksgiving celebrations in the United States, a tradition that dates to the earliest era of the sport in the late 19th century. Professional football games are often held on Thanksgiving Day; until recently, these were the only games played during the week apart from Sunday or Monday night. The National Football League (NFL) has played games on Thanksgiving every year since its creation except during World War II. The hosted a game every Thanksgiving Day from 1934 to 1938 and have hosted one every year since 1945. In 1966, the , which were founded six years earlier, adopted the practice of hosting Thanksgiving games. The league added a third game in in 2006; unlike the traditional afternoon doubleheader, this game has no fixed host.

For teams that participate in the highest level (all teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, as well as three teams in the historically black Southwestern Athletic Conference of the Championship Subdivision), the regular season ends on Thanksgiving weekend, and a team's final game is often against a regional or historic rival, such as the between Alabama and Auburn, the rivalry formerly known as the Oregon Civil War between Oregon and Oregon State, the between Washington and Washington State, and Michigan and Ohio State playing in their rivalry game.

Some high school football games (which include some state championship games), and informal "Turkey Bowl" contests played by amateur groups and organizations, are frequently held on Thanksgiving weekend. High school contests were once commonplace on the holiday but have rapidly declined since the late 20th century and into the early 21st century (except in portions of New England and widely scattered examples elsewhere) as schools shift their focus to state tournaments and winter sports. Games of football preceding or following the meal in the backyard or a nearby field are also common during many family gatherings. Amateur games typically follow less organized backyard-rules, two-hand touch or styles.

Other sports
College basketball holds several elimination tournaments on over Thanksgiving weekend, before the conference season. These include the Anaheim-based , the Orlando-based AdvoCare Invitational, and the -based Battle 4 Atlantis, all of which are televised on ESPN2 and in marathon format. The NCAA owned-and-operated NIT Season Tip-Off has also since moved to Thanksgiving week.

Though and are in their off-seasons on Thanksgiving, there are events in those sports that take place on Thanksgiving weekend. The Turkey Night Grand Prix is an annual automobile race that takes place at various venues in southern California on Thanksgiving night; due in part to the fact that this is after the NASCAR Cup Series and have finished their seasons, it allows some of the top racers in the United States to participate. In golf, Thanksgiving weekend was the traditional time of the Skins Game from 1983 to 2008, a tradition that was later revived in the form of The Match, a sports entertainment tournament held most years on or near Thanksgiving since 2018.

The world championship contest was held in early November in and televised each Thanksgiving on , but the event was mired in liability disputes following injuries at the events in the 2010s; it has been held only once since 2016, a 2019 contest in that had far fewer competitors and ran a financial loss.

In , the National Hockey League announced, as part of its decade-long extension with NBC, that they would begin airing a game on the Friday afternoon following Thanksgiving beginning the 2011–12 NHL season; the game has since been branded as the "Thanksgiving Showdown". (The have played matinees on Black Friday since at least 1990, but 2011 was the first time the game was nationally televised.)

Professional wrestling promotions have typically held premier events on or around the time of Thanksgiving. This trend began in 1983 when Jim Crockett Promotions, the largest promoter in the National Wrestling Alliance, introduced . Starrcade, later incorporated into World Championship Wrestling, moved off Thanksgiving in 1988; the year prior, the rival had introduced , an event that continues to be hosted in November to the present day.

Many American cities hold events, known as "", on Thanksgiving morning, so much so that , Thanksgiving is the most popular race day in the U.S. Depending on the organizations involved, these can range from one-mile (1.6 km) to full (although no races currently use the latter; the stopped running on Thanksgiving in 2010). The oldest continually running annual footrace in North America, the YMCA Buffalo Niagara Turkey Trot, is among these races.

In , Major League Soccer announced in 2021 that a MLS Cup Playoffs match will be held on Thanksgiving for the first time, with a Conference Semifinals match of the 2021 Playoffs between the and the held on that day. While the MLS Cup playoffs were usually held from October to December, no MLS match was held on a Thanksgiving Day before 2021. The experiment was not reprised after 2021 as MLS Cup Playoff games have been scheduled solely for Saturdays and Sundays since then.

Television
While not as prolific as Christmas specials, which usually begin right after Thanksgiving, there are many special television programs transmitted on or around Thanksgiving, such as A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, in addition to the live parades and football games mentioned above. In some cases, television broadcasters begin programming Christmas films and specials to run on Thanksgiving Day, taking the day as a signal for the beginning of the Christmas season.

Radio
"Alice's Restaurant", an 18-minute monologue by which is partially based on an incident that happened on Thanksgiving in 1965, was first released in 1967. It has since become a tradition on numerous and radio stations to play the full, uninterrupted recording to much fanfare each Thanksgiving Day, a tradition that appears to have originated with counterculture radio host , who introduced the song to the public on his radio show. Another song that traditionally gets played on numerous radio stations (of many different formats) is "The Thanksgiving Song", a 1992 song by . "Grandma's Thanksgiving," a 1947 suite that occupies both sides of a 78 RPM album by , is a recurring tradition on WBEN in Buffalo, New York, where it was a longstanding tradition of morning Clint Buehlman and has continued under succeeding hosts Bill Lacy and Randy Bushover.

In the beginning of the 21st century, Thanksgiving or the day after was the traditional start date when radio stations flipped to continuous Christmas music. Due to , this date has progressed to well before Thanksgiving for most stations that follow this strategy.

Historically, The Rush Limbaugh Show carried a tradition of "The True Story of Thanksgiving," a monologue in which host , reciting from his book See, I Told You So, highlighted lesser-known aspects of the traditional Plymouth story, with particular emphasis on the ill-fated decision to pool all of the colony's resources commonly, which he used as a cautionary tale against modern-day socialism.

Turkey pardoning
The President of the United States has received a Thanksgiving turkey every year since 1873; for the first 41 years, the turkey was provided by Westerly, Rhode Island turkey kingpin Horace Vose. In 1947, in what began as a ploy to get President to stop rationing turkey for foreign aid, the National Turkey Federation has presented the President of the United States with one live turkey and two dressed turkeys in a ceremony known as the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation. John F. Kennedy was the first president reported to spare the turkey given to him (he said he did not plan to eat the bird); by the late 1970s, most of the turkeys were being sent to petting zoos, while the dressed turkeys are usually sent to a charity such as Martha's Table.

Some legends date the origins of pardoning turkey to the administration or even to pardoning his son's Christmas turkey; both stories have been quoted in more recent presidential speeches, but neither has any evidence in the Presidential record. In more recent years, two turkeys have been pardoned, in case the original turkey becomes unavailable for presidential pardoning.

George H. W. Bush made the turkey pardon a permanent annual tradition upon assuming the presidency in 1989, a tradition that was possibly inspired in part by a joke his predecessor had cracked during the 1987 presentation and has been carried on by every president each year since. After stints at Frying Pan Farm Park in Herndon, Virginia (1989 to 2004), the Disney Resorts (2005 to 2009), (the estate of George Washington, 2010 to 2012), and (the estate of Westmoreland Davis, 2013 to 2015), turkeys have lived the remainder of their lives in the care of agricultural departments of major universities. The turkeys rarely lived to see the next Thanksgiving due to being bred for large size; this gradually improved over the course of the 2010s as Morven Park and the universities have been more aggressive in maintaining the turkeys' health.

Vacation and travel
On Thanksgiving Day, families and friends usually gather for a large meal or dinner. Consequently, the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the year. Thanksgiving is a four-day or five-day weekend vacation for schools and colleges. Most business and government workers (78% as of 2007) are given Thanksgiving and the day after as paid holidays. Thanksgiving Eve (also known as Blackout Wednesday), the night before Thanksgiving, is one of the busiest nights of the year for bars and clubs as many college students and others return to their hometowns to reunite with friends and family.

Criticism, controversy and alternative observations
Due to the popularity of the Thanksgiving festivities in the U.S., the holiday has attracted protests and alternative observation traditions.

Indigenous protests
Much like , Thanksgiving has been subject to criticism under the lens of tribal critical race theory. It is observed by some as a "National Day of Mourning", in acknowledgment of the Native American genocide in the United States. Thanksgiving has long carried a distinct resonance for many Native Americans, who see the holiday as an embellished story of "Pilgrims and Natives looking past their differences" to break bread. Some Native Americans hold "Unthanksgiving Day" celebrations in which they mourn the deaths of their ancestors, fast, dance, and pray. This tradition has been taking place since 1975. Since 1970, the United American Indians of New England, a protest group led by Frank "Wamsutta" James (Aquinnah Wampanoag, 1923−2001), has accused the United States of fabricating the Thanksgiving story and of whitewashing genocide and injustice against Native Americans, and it has led a National Day of Mourning protest on Thanksgiving at in Plymouth, Massachusetts in the name of social equality and political prisoners.

Professor David J. Silverman notes that the story of the pilgrims and their Wampanoag allies dining together in peace mythologized this interaction but at the same time the later breakdown in relations between the two groups was ignored. He believes that this perpetuates the notion that the Wampanoag's chief legacy was to present America as a gift to the pilgrims and to concede to colonialism similar to the stories of Pocahontes and Sacagawea. Professor R.W. Jensen of the University of Texas at Austin writes that "One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting." The autobiography of Mark Twain, first published in 1924, gives the satirical opinion of thus:

Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful forannually, not oftenerif they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual compliments.

Those who sympathize with this view acknowledge it as a small minority view; author and humanist J.G. Rodwan, who does not celebrate Thanksgiving, noted that those who attempt to tie Thanksgiving to colonialism and genocides "are likely to be dismissed as some sort of crank".

Native American harvest festivals and Thanksgiving traditions
The perception of Thanksgiving among Native Americans is not, however, universally negative and some do celebrate the holiday. (, 1934–2022), founder of the Native American Journalists Association, sought to reconcile Thanksgiving with Native American fall harvest celebrations. He compares Thanksgiving to "wopila", a thanks-giving celebration practiced by Native Americans of the Great Plains. He wrote in The Huffington Post: "The idea of a day of Thanksgiving has been a part of the Native American landscape for centuries. The fact that it is also a national holiday for all Americans blends in perfectly with Native American traditions." He also shares personal anecdotes of Native American families coming together to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Oneida participation in commercial Thanksgiving parade
Members of the Oneida Indian Nation marched in the 2010 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with a float called "The True Spirit of Thanksgiving" and have done so every year since.

Blamesgiving
In the early part of the 20th century, the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism (4A) opposed the celebration of Thanksgiving Day, offering an alternative observance called Blamegiving Day, which was in their eyes, "a protest against Divine negligence, to be observed each year on Thanksgiving Day, on the assumption, for the day only, that God exists". Citing their view of the separation of church and state, some in recent times have particularly criticized the annual recitation of Thanksgiving proclamations by the President of the United States, because these proclamations often revolve around the theme of giving thanks to God.

Retail workers' rights
The move by retailers to begin holiday sales during Thanksgiving Day (as opposed to the traditional day after) has been criticized as forcing (under threat of being fired) low-end retail workers, who compose an increasing share of the nation's workforce, to work odd hours and to handle atypical, unruly crowds on a day reserved for rest.

In response to this controversy, Macy's and (both of which planned to open on Thanksgiving, even earlier than they had the year before) stated in 2014 that most of their Thanksgiving Day shifts were filled voluntarily by employees who would rather have the day after Thanksgiving off instead of Thanksgiving itself.Gustafson, Krystina (October 14, 2014). Macy's to open at 6:00p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. CNBC. Retrieved October 15, 2014. Best Buy Doorbuster Deals Start at 5:00p.m. on Thanksgiving and at 8:00a.m. on Black Friday. Press release. Retrieved November 11, 2014. This practice has become common (but not universal) as of 2024.

By 2021, retailers had largely abandoned efforts to hold Thanksgiving doorbusters and returned their focus to Black Friday proper. in several Northeastern states prevent retailers in those states from opening on Thanksgiving. Such retailers typically opened at midnight on the day after Thanksgiving.

Harvest of Shame
Journalist Edward R. Murrow and producer David Lowe deliberately chose Thanksgiving weekend 1960 to release Murrow's final story for . Entitled Harvest of Shame, the hour-long documentary was designed "to shock Americans into action" regarding the treatment of impoverished migrant farmworkers in the country, hoping to contrast Thanksgiving dinner and its excesses with the poverty of those who picked the vegetables. Murrow acknowledged the documentary portrayed the United States from a hostile perspective and, when he left CBS to join the United States Information Agency in 1961, unsuccessfully tried to stop the special from being aired in the United Kingdom.

Vegetarian Thanksgiving
Vegetarians have criticized the holiday and its focus on turkey since before the holiday was officially recognized in the U.S. In the nineteenth century, American vegetarians created a distinct Thanksgiving menu. Nineteenth-century newspaper editor and vegetarian criticized the holiday in 1848 and 1859. The first recipe for a vegetarian turkey appeared in the U.S. in 1891. In 1894, Ella Eaton Kellogg published a recipe for vegetarian mock turkey. One of the earliest known vegetarian Thanksgiving dinners was held in 1895 at the University of Chicago. During the twentieth century, many recipes for vegetarian turkey were published. The Millennium Guild in Boston held a vegetarian Thanksgiving at the Copley Hotel in 1913 where a Golden Rule Roast was served. In 1995, was first sold commercially.

Date
Since being fixed on the fourth Thursday in November by law in 1941 (from 1863 to 1940 it was on the last Thursday in November), the holiday in the United States can occur on any date from November 22 to 28 (November 24 to 30 from 1863 to 1940). When it falls on November 22 or 23, it is not the last Thursday, but the penultimate Thursday in November. Regardless, it is the Thursday preceding the last Saturday of November.

Because Thanksgiving is a federal holiday, all United States government offices are closed and all employees are paid for that day. It is also a holiday for the New York Stock Exchange and most other financial markets and financial services companies.

Table of dates (1863–2103)
The date of Thanksgiving Day follows a 28-year cycle, broken only by century years that are not a multiple of 400 (e.g. 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500 ...). The break in the regular cycle is an effect of the leap year algorithm, which dictates that such years are as an adjustment for the calendar / season alignment that leap years provide. Past and future dates of celebration include:see
and

Not Possible1864 1863Dates not possible due to thanksgiving being on various days during these years (pre-1863)
187018691868 186718661865
1875187418731872 1871
18811880 1879187818771876
1887188618851884 18831882
1892 1891189018991888
189818971896 189518941893
1904 19031902190119001899
191019091908 190719061905
1915191419131912 1911
19211920 1919191819171916
1927192619251924 19231922
1932 1931193019291928
193819371936 193519341933
19451944 1943194219411940 1939
1946Not Possible
1957
1963
1968
1974
1985
1991
1996
2002
2013
2019
2024
2030
2041
2047
2052
2063206220612060 20592058
2068 2067206620652064
207420732072 207120702069
2079207820772076 2075
20852084 2083208220812080
2091209020892088 20872086
2096 2095209420932092
2103210221012100209920982097

Days after Thanksgiving
A broader period of leads into and follows the holiday of Thanksgiving itself. The day after Thanksgiving is a holiday for some companies and most schools. In the last two decades of the 20th century, it became known as Black Friday, the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and a day for chaotic, early-morning sales at major retailers that were closed on Thanksgiving. A contrasting movement known as Buy Nothing Day originated in Canada in 1992. The day after Thanksgiving is also Native American Heritage Day, a day to pay tribute to Native Americans for their many contributions to the United States.

The Friday after Thanksgiving had been coined , as plumbing companies such as reporting a sudden increase in business due to the large amount of waste produced. Small Business Saturday, a movement promoting shopping at smaller local establishments, takes place on the last Saturday in November, two days after Thanksgiving. is a nickname given to the Monday following Thanksgiving; the day evolved in the early days of the Internet, when consumers returning to work took advantage of their employers' broadband Internet connections to do and retailers began offering sales to meet the demand. ( is a similar observance in .) takes place on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.

Literature
Poetry
  • (1909), by Florence Earle Coates.
  • "Over the River and Through the Wood" (1844), by Lydia Maria Child
  • "Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1986", by William S. Burroughs in Tornado Alley.

Music
  • "We Gather Together" (1597), a hymn of Dutch origin written by Adrianus Valerius.
  • "Now Thank We All Our God" (), a hymn of German origin written by .
  • "We Plough the Fields and Scatter" (1782), a hymn of German origin written by Matthias Claudius.
  • "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come" (1844), an English hymn written by Henry Alford.
  • "The New England Boy's Song about Thanksgiving Day" (commonly known as "Over the River and Through the Wood", 1844), a song by Lydia Marie Child.
  • "" (1848), a Shaker hymn attributed to .
  • "For the Beauty of the Earth" (1864), an English hymn written by Folliott Sandford Pierpoint.
  • "A Hymn of Thanksgiving" (1899), composed and written by and Ira D. Sankey.
  • "Bless This House" (1927), a song composed and written by and Helen Taylor.
  • "Let All Things Now Living" (1939), a hymn with lyrics by Katherine Kennicott Davis, set to the Welsh folk tune "The Ash Grove"
  • "I've Got Plenty To Be Thankful For", sung by in the 1942 film Holiday Inn.
  • Grandma's Thanksgiving (1947), a suite composed by with lyrics by Frank Cunkle and recorded by .
  • "Alice's Restaurant", a song by on his 1967 album Alice's Restaurant, based on a true incident in his life that began on Thanksgiving Day, 1965.
  • "Thanksgiving", a song by on his album December (1982).
  • "Hold My Mule" by (), later remixed as "You Name It" ("U Name It")
  • "The Thanksgiving Song", a song by on his album They're All Gonna Laugh at You! (1994).
  • "Thanksgiving Day Parade", a song by on his album New American Language (2001).
  • "Thanksgiving Day", a song by on his album Other People's Lives (2006).
  • "The Thanksgiving Song" (2020), written and performed by was the opening track from his holiday album A Ben Rector Christmas.

Footnotes
Bibliography

Further reading
  • An hour-long history public radio program examining the roots of America's Thanksgiving rituals.
  • Free audio readings of Thanksgiving proclamations by William Bradford, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln
  • Gioia, Robin (2014). America's Real First Thanksgiving: St. Augustine, Florida, September 8, 1565. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press; .
  • (2025). 9781594038938, Encounter Books.

External links
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