Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in most of north America.doc

Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving Day in America is a time to offer thanks, of family gatherings and holiday meals. A time of turkeys, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. A time for Indian corn, holiday parades and giant balloons So here for your entertainment are some fun Holiday things for you and your family. Weve got stories of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving, turkeys to take home, holiday pictures for the kids to print and color, tasty holiday recipes and e-greeting cards to send your friends and family. We hope you find something you like!Thanksgiving is celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November, which this year (2004) is November 25th. 　Thanksgiving Day: Fourth Thursday in November　　Almost every culture in the world has held celebrations of thanks for a plentiful harvest. The American Thanksgiving holiday began as a feast of thanksgiving in the early days of the American colonies almost four hundred years ago.　　In 1620, a boat filled with more than one hundred people sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to settle in the New World（新大陆）. This religious group had begun to question the beliefs of the Church of England and they wanted to separate from it. The Pilgrims settled in what is now the state of Massachusetts. Their first winter in the New World was difficult. They had arrived too late to grow many crops, and without fresh food, half the colony died from disease. The following spring the Iroquois Indians（美国纽约州东北部易洛魁族印第安人）taught them how to grow corn, a new food for the colonists. They showed them other crops to grow in the unfamiliar soil and how to hunt and fish.　　In the autumn of 1621, bountiful crops of corn, barley（大麦）, beans and pumpkins were harvested. The colonists had much to be thankful for, so a feast was planned. They invited the local Indian chief and 90 Indians. The Indians brought deer to roast with the turkeys and other wild game offered by the colonists. The colonists had learned how to cook cranberries and different kinds