i think most holidaze any more have lost there origins thur time...so just thought i would do some history for this one
M..sorry i don't know a lot about canada's history..so if you want to fill us in..please do
for this year i give thanks that knowing all of you has furthered my growth..
thank you all and blessings.. 
Thanksgiving
From Wikipedia, the free encycloped
Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in Canada and the United States. Traditionally, it is a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general. While perhaps religious in origin, Thanksgiving is now primarily identified as a secular holiday.
The date and location of the first Thanksgiving celebration is a topic of modest contention. The traditional "first Thanksgiving" is the celebration that occurred at the site of Plymouth Plantation, in 1621. The Plymouth celebration occurred early in the history of what would become one of the original thirteen colonies that became the United States. The celebration became an important part of the American myth by the 1800s.[citation needed] This Thanksgiving, modeled after celebrations that were commonplace in contemporary Europe, is generally regarded as America's first. Elementary school teacher Robyn Gioia has argued that the earliest attested "thanksgiving" celebration in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish on September 8, 1565 in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida.[1][2] Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members and friends.
A Thanksgiving Day service is held in Hooglandse Kerk to commemorate the hospitality the Pilgrims received in Leiden on their way to the New World.[4]
In Grenada there is a national holiday of Thanksgiving Day on 25 October. It is unrelated to holidays in Canada and the United States even though it bears the same name and occurs around the same time. It marks the anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of the island in 1983 in response to the deposition and execution of Grenadan Prime Minister Maurice Bishop.[3
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Pagan Roots of Thanksgiving
Feast Day Has Roots in European and Native American Paganism
Jill Stefko
It's taught that the Pilgrims established Thanksgiving, to share their abundant harvest with local Wampanoag Tribe, “People of the Dawn.” They were gatherers, hunters, farmers and fishermen. The colonists arrived in December and endured hard times, barely surviving. Colonists recorded Indians were robbed and their fields were plundered, most likely because of this.
Wampanoag Tribe Helping Pilgrims Leads to Thanksgiving
Wampanoagan Samoset came to help the colonists, but his command of the English language was limited, so he later brought Squanto, who knew English well, to teach the Pilgrims survival skills. He taught the immigrants how to grow beans, corn, squash and other crops, using fish as a fertilizer. Squanto showed them which plants were poisonous and those used for healing. He taught the people how to obtain sap from maple trees, dig for clams and other skills.
The Pilgrims celebrated the first New World harvest. Leader Captain Miles Standish invited Chief Massasoit and 90 braves, including Squanto and Samoset, to join them in 1621. Thanksgiving was not the first feast celebrating harvest. Pagans had festivals giving thanks for bounty.
Native American and Pagan European Thanksgiving Roots
The Wampanoag had their own harvest celebration in which they gave thanks for abundant crops to Kiehtan, the Creator. They believed corn, the most valued crop, was a gift from him. The tribe expressed gratitude to the spirits of the game for the animals they killed for food.
By the time Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1861, other Europeans had settled in America and brought their traditions, some Pagan, with them. Harvest festivals were celebrated by Europeans. Romans celebrated Cerelia by giving thanks to Ceres, Goddess of Harvest. Celtic and Anglo/Saxon Pagans celebrated Lughnasadh and Mabon, the first and second harvests. The Greeks gave honor to Demeter during the Thesmophoria. The New Englanders’ Pagan ancestors celebrated Harvest Home, the first reaping of crops, in August. There was a silent time for gratitude and reflection, followed by singing and dancing after which a joyous feast was held.
First Thanksgiving Feast
There are only two brief contemporary accounts written by Edward Winslow and William Bradford of the menu. According to these, celebrants ate venison, fowl, corn, fish and wheat breads. It is likely that rabbit, eggs, shellfish, barley, beans, squash, carrots, onions, peas, cabbage, cheese, pumpkin and Indian puddings, nuts and cornbread were on the table because these foods were available in 1621. There were no pies because the colonists didn’t have ovens. Potatoes weren’t served.It’s been written that Quadequina, Massasoit’s brother, treated the celebrants to popcorn. This has been refuted because Indian corn doesn’t pop well. It’s possible that popcorn, although poorly made, was served.
Read more:
http://paganismwicca.suite101.com/article.cfm/thanksgiving_pagan_roots#ixzz0XtcEbLMD************************************************************
It wasn't until October 1777 that all 13 colonies celebrated a day of Thanksgiving. The very first national day of Thanksgiving was held in 1789, when President George Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26 to be "a day of public thanksgiving and prayer," to especially give thanks for the opportunity to form a new nation and the establishment of a new constitution.
Yet even after a national day of Thanksgiving was declared in 1789, Thanksgiving was not an annual celebration.
Mother of Thanksgiving
We owe the modern concept of Thanksgiving to a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale. Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book and author of the famous "Mary Had a Little Lamb" nursery rhyme, spent 40 years advocating for a national, annual Thanksgiving holiday. In the years leading up to the Civil War, she saw the holiday as a way to infuse hope and belief in the nation and the constitution. So, when the United States was torn in half during the Civil War and Lincoln was searching for a way to bring the nation together, he discussed the matter with Hale.
Lincoln Sets Date
On October 3, 1863, Lincoln issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation that declared the last Thursday in November (based on Washington's date) to be a day of "thanksgiving and praise." For the first time, Thanksgiving became a national, annual holiday with a specific date.
FDR Changes It
For 75 years after Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation, succeeding presidents honored the tradition and annually issued their own Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November as the day of Thanksgiving. However, in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not. In 1939, the last Thursday of November was going to be November 30. Retailers complained to FDR that this only left 24 shopping days to Christmas and begged him to push Thanksgiving just one week earlier. It was determined that most people do their Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving and retailers hoped that with an extra week of shopping, people would buy more.
So when FDR announced his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1939, he declared the date of Thanksgiving to be Thursday, November 23, the second-to-last Thursday of the month.
Controversy
The new date for Thanksgiving caused a lot of confusion. Calendars were now incorrect. Schools who had planned vacations and tests now had to reschedule. Thanksgiving had been a big day for football games, as it is today, so the game schedule had to be examined.
Political opponents of FDR and many others questioned the president's right to change the holiday and stressed the breaking of precedent and disregard for tradition. Many believed that changing a cherished holiday just to appease businesses was not a sufficient reason for change. Atlantic City's mayor derogatorily called November 23 as "Franksgiving."
Two Thanksgivings in 1939?
Before 1939, the president annually announced his Thanksgiving Proclamation and then governors followed the president in officially proclaiming the same day as Thanksgiving for their state. In 1939, many governors did not agree with FDR's decision to change the date and refused to follow him. The country became split on which Thanksgiving they should observe.
Twenty-three states followed FDR's change and declared Thanksgiving to be November 23. Twenty-three other states disagreed with FDR and kept the traditional date for Thanksgiving, November 30. Two states, Colorado and Texas, decided to honor both dates.
This idea of two Thanksgiving days split some families, because not everyone had the same day off work.
Did It Work?
Though the confusion caused many frustrations across the country, the question remained as to whether the extended holiday shopping season caused people to spend more, thus helping the economy. The answer was no. Businesses reported that the spending was approximately the same, but the distribution of the shopping was changed. For those states who celebrated the earlier Thanksgiving date, the shopping was evenly distributed throughout the season. For those states that kept the traditional date, businesses experienced a bulk of shopping in the last week before Christmas.
1940
In 1940, FDR again announced Thanksgiving to be the second-to-last Thursday of the month. This time, 31 states followed him with the earlier date and 17 kept the traditional date. Confusion over two Thanksgivings continued.
Congress Fixes It
Lincoln had established the Thanksgiving holiday to bring the country together, but the confusion over the date change was tearing it apart. On December 26, 1941, Congress passed a law declaring that Thanksgiving would occur every year on the fourth Thursday of November.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1930s/a/thanksgiving_2.htm 
Wed Nov 25, 2009 11:20 am
