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|  When families across the United States sit down for their Thanksgiving dinners this week, health conscious people will not be the only ones monitoring what is eaten. So will the government. Every year, the U.S. Census Bureau tabulates dozens of seemingly obscure facts relating to twenty major holidays and observances in the country, generating statistics on everything from how much turkey we eat to how many pumpkins are grown annually. Most people probably did not realize that the typical U.S. citizen eats 13.7 pounds of turkey and 4.7 pounds of sweet potatoes on an annual basis. They also probably did not realize that 256 million turkeys are being raised in the United States this year. Nor did they know that the U.S. export or cranberries and sweet potatoes is helping to narrow the nation's trade deificit. Robert Bernstein is a public affairs specialist with the Census Bureau and over the course of eight years has been collecting and disseminating this information related to holidays and observances in the United States.
Thanksgiving Day has become a full-fledged national holiday in 1863 during civil war, when President Abraham Lincoln has declared that henceforth the fourth Thursday of November will be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day.
Final transfer of holiday to last Thursday of November happened in 1939 thanks to ordinance of Roosevelt. Rumors made rounds that Roosevelt shifted to last Thursday of November strictly due to economic reasons. Having given two excess holidays to rest to ever busy citizens of the country, he correctly assumed that the citizens would spend the rest days to bur & stock gifts for Christmas. And four days of nation-wide shopping will positively affect the American exchequer.
Thanksgiving Day - family holiday, relatives and friends gather from all over the country for a large meal or dinner with table, arranged with traditional food. On the eve of Thanksgiving Day, all airports of America are overcrowded and roads are jam-packed with automobiles. It seems that the entire country is on move to reach home, where all generations meet, grudges are forgotten and the best that happened through out the year is remembered.
Even the children are allowed to sit around the table. From the day they remember themselves, they also remember unsinkable generosity of Thanksgiving Day, its special appeasing spirit. After the meal, someone from the adults invariably says: “What are we thanking for this year?” - And everyone else in turns say: “I am thankful for... ”
It is almost impossible to predict the answers. They can be serious or playful, practical or sentimental, with tears in eyes or with an ironical smile. Most probably, it is not important what you speak but what you think and respond to the question - with open soul, as if standing in a invisible temple for a second.
In America, each and every school boy knows about the pilgrims, who arrived in America almost four hundred years ago on ship "Mayflower". Having gone through troubles and deprivations, they learned to value simple pleasures. Therefore, tasty and nourishing meal on this day is not a simple food but also a special ritual, symbol of worldly pleasures and connections with the land, yielding fruits to people.
Always someone or something exists to be thanked. Not to complain but instead be happy. Not to be distressed about lost but to admire the gifted. And always have trust in the best.
American Thanksgiving Day has its own well-defined specific traditions: meal (first and foremost, turkey is usually the featured item, sweet potatoes, stuffing, mashed potatoes with gravy, cranberry sauce, stuffing from rusk cubes with spices, potatoes, sweet potatoes, maize, pumpkin pie and sauce re commonly associated with Thanksgiving dinner), two rest days, meal, viewing of football matches on TV, again a meal, local parades and is even larger meals. A week after the Thanksgiving Day is celebrated as eating up the left-over food.
If someone remains without festive meal, then he is invited to charitable organizations. On Thanksgiving Day, President finds time in his rigid schedule to feed homeless, poor and old men, by serving them lavish food. It is understood that, someone can be treated even without his participation but it is the President’s role to lead from the front and become an example for charity.
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