2. Americans of all religions celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November.
Thanksgiving is a special day for families and people travel great distances to be with their families.
They give thanks for the food and blessings.

3. The tradition started when in September, 1620, a group of men, women and children left England in search of religious freedom.
They boarded a ship called the Mayflower.
They were called pilgrims, and they wanted to start a new life in the New World.

4. The voyage was very hard
The voyage was very hard.They were cold and hungry and many of them died.
The voyage took 65 days. On November 21, 1620, the pilgrims landed on the north–east coast of North America, at a place called Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.
There were about 100 pilgrims who survived the voyage.

5. When the Pilgrims arrived it was almost winter, so they had no time to grow crops.
The winter was long and very cold.
Many of the Pilgrims were sick and no one had enough food to eat.
Half of the Pilgrims did not survive the first winter.

6. In the spring, native Americans, the Wampanoag Indians, became friends with the Pilgrims and helped them.
They gave the Pilgrims seeds for corn, taught the Pilgrims how to plant crops, how to hunt and how to fish.
The summer harvest was very good and by November, a year after their first arrival, there was food for everybody.

7. The Pilgrims wanted to celebrate the harvest and show their thanks to the native Americans for helping them.
They invited the native Americans to a great dinner where they gave thanks to God for the food and for their friendship with the native Americans. That was the first Thanksgiving.

8. President Abraham Lincoln established the date for our annual Thanksgiving celebration in 1863, making Thanksgiving a national holiday.
Today the traditional Thanksgiving meal is similar to the first. We eat roast turkey with cranberry sauce, potatoes, corn, pumpkin pie and many other delicious plates.

9. Many families prepare very elegant feasts on Thanksgiving, and spend the days before getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner with their relatives and friends.

10. The most important dish on Thanksgiving is the turkey.
More than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the United States on Thanksgiving.
Americans feast on 535 million pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving!!!

11. We eat sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce and cornbread.

12. We eat pumpkin pie, gingerbread cookies, and pecan pie.

13. What are you thankful for?
The pilgrims were thankful for the help from the Indians. So, Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful!
Most families go around the table and say something they are thankful for before eating.
What are you thankful for?