Thanksgiving Day is a very special day for people in the United States. They celebrate it on the last Thursday in November. Canadians also celebrate Thanksgiving Day, but they do it on the second Monday of October. InBritain, where this festival is called Harvest Festival, people celebrate it earlier in the year, in September.

　　A harvest is the fruit you take from the trees and the crops you take from the ground. In North America andBritain, harvest time for most fruit and crops is in the autumn. In these countries and other Christian places, people give thanks to God on a special day of the year. They thank God for the good things that have happened during the year and for the good harvest they have had. People usually take small boxes of fruit, flowers, and vegetables to their churches to show their thanks.

　　The first thanksgiving service (儀式) in North America took place on December 4th, 1619 when 38 English people, arrived in America to make their home in the new country. They held this service not to thank God for the harvest, but to thank God for their safe journeys. The next year, many more English people arrived. They had a bad winter, but fortunately the harvest was good. they decided to celebrate it with a big meal. They shot and killed small animals to eat and cooked every-thing outside on large fires. About 90 Indians also came to the meal. Everyone ate at tables outside their houses and played games together. The festival lasted three days.

　　A Thanksgiving Day celebration was held every year for a long time, but not always on the same day of the year. Then, in 1789, President George Washington named November 26th as the Day of Thanksgiving. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln changed the date, and said that the last Thursday in November should be Thanksgiving Day.

　　Nowadays, North Americans around the world get together with their families on this day to eat good food and have a happy time.

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