Thanksgiving Day 2022: Its significance and how it’s celebrated

Thanksgiving Day or just simply Thanksgiving is a national holiday that is celebrated across parts of North America and the Caribbean. The holiday is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States and the second Monday of October in Canada. The day is celebrated to give thanks for the harvest of the year. The festival finds its origins in similar harvest festivals across Europe.

The modern holiday of Thanksgiving dates back to 1619 when the English colonists celebrated the day with prayers and feasting in Virginia. The settlers had been celebrating to give thanks to God for protecting them during the treacherous journey over the Atlantic Ocean, where temperatures dropped below freezing at night. The journey would frequently kill many of those who embarked from Europe and England, with shipwrecks, exposure to elements, starvation and disease being common risks.

By 1789, the festival was so ingrained into the American consciousness that George Washington, the first President of the United States, issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the US government. President Washington asked Americans in the declaration to express gratitude for the conclusion of the American Revolution as well as the ratification of the US Constitution. Inspired by this Thanksgiving proclamation, President Abraham Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving proclamation in 1863, and since then the festival has been celebrated every year as a national holiday.

While the festival has a Christian background, today Thanksgiving is widely celebrated by people from all faiths. The festival is usually marked by people returning to their families to partake in a Thanksgiving feast, which is usually served with food like roast turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. The Thanksgiving dinner is preceded by prayers where families give thanks to God for the things that they are grateful for in the past year.