This is the beginning of Holiday Origins, where I will be taking a moment to go back in time to find out where our famous holidays originated and how they are celebrated in different countries. This time, we’re bringing out all the stuffing, with pun intended, and looking back at Thanksgiving!

It’s that time of year again; your relatives are coming down for the week, your family is cooking the delicious food for Thursday, and you’re ready for Black Friday. That’s right; Thanksgiving is here! Many of us celebrate Thanksgiving in the same way: our relatives come for the week, we eat turkey and mashed potatoes, and then on Friday we wake up at 3:30 in the morning to drive all over the place shopping for the greatest deals. We all know what Thanksgiving is about: Family and Food. Here is how this annual feast began:

The story starts in England. The King is mean. People want to have freedom. So a group them board a ship called the Mayflower. After surviving a long voyage over the Atlantic Ocean, the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. They landed at the worst time possible, just weeks before the first snow. They had a hard time surviving. A friendly Native American, Squanto, and his tribe taught the pilgrims how to fish, how to plant corn, and how to plant squash. With this help, the colonists were able to expand into what would become the Thirteen Colonies and then the United States of America. The colonists held a party to celebrate a good harvest and invited Squanto and his tribe. This is the story, or so we think.

While everything that happened was true, there are some interesting facts that you may have not even known. We were taught that they ate turkey, cranberries, and sweet potatoes. This menu is wrong. It was discovered that there is evidence to say that they ate a type of water fowl. And it turns out that cranberries would have been too tart to have been a dessert. They most likely ate grapes and melons. As for those sweet potatoes, they weren’t even growing here yet! I think the reason of why we are told of the “modern Thanksgiving menu” is because that’s what the story basically is. It is a story with a modern twist to help us relate to the time period. We may think that everyone celebrates Thanksgiving with turkey, Macy’s, and football; this not exactly true.

In Japan, they have a Thanksgiving, but it is called Labor Thanksgiving Day. It is held every year on November 23, right around the same time as we do. Their holiday is different because they celebrate labor, production, and thank each other. Japan also holds festivals to encourage thinking about peace and the environment. Even the children celebrate this holiday. They have their own tradition: they create drawings and give them as gifts to their local police officers. These traditions are more modern than the original Labor Thanksgiving Day. Back in the ancient days of the 400’s the Japanese would hold a harvest festival for rice and wheat. The emperor would dedicate the year’s hard work and taste the rice for the first time. Their holiday goes way back before our Thanksgiving’s origin begins! Take some time on Thanksgiving to not only say what you are thankful for, but to thank the people around you as well. Enjoy your turkey, pumpkin pie, and potatoes and Happy Thanksgiving!