HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

“Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.” - W.T. Purkiser

It is a special day in the USA today – Thanksgiving, which is a day of celebration firmly associated with the Pilgrim Fathers, the pioneer spirit and the difficulty of taming a wild land, such that its rich bounty could be harvested from its firm hold. The origins of the day are traditionally based on the Thanksgiving Feast held by the Pilgrims who sailed in the good ship “Mayflower” to settle in America in the early 17th century.

A pilgrim is any person who makes a journey, often long and difficult, to a special place for religious reasons. The term, in the USA especially, applies to the members of a group of English Puritans who were fleeing religious persecution in Britain and who sailed in the “Mayflower” to found the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.

The first harvest of crops was plentiful and so they 
gave thanks to the Lord. There is some disagreement as to whether this was the basis for the tradition but it is generally held to be the origin. Although the holiday had religious origins with a superadded harvest festival tradition, Thanksgiving nowadays is secularised. Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the USA. Thanksgiving dinner is held on this day, usually as a gathering of family members, with traditional foods such as turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin, corn, mash, various pies, cornbread and other foods characteristic of the New World.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!

And for the word of the day:

pilgrim |ˈpilgrəm|noun
a person who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons.
• (usually Pilgrim) a member of a group of English Puritans fleeing religious persecution who sailed in the Mayflower and founded the colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620.
• a person who travels on long journeys.
• chiefly poetic/literary a person whose life is compared to a journey.
verb ( -grimmed, -grimming) [ intrans. ] archaic
Travel or wander like a pilgrim.

DERIVATIVES
pilgrimise |-ˌmīz| |ˈpɪlgrəˈmaɪz| verb ( archaic).
ORIGIN Middle English : from Provençal pelegrin, from Latin peregrinus ‘foreign’.

The painting above is "The First Thanksgiving" by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris.