It is usually alleged that in the year of 1621, in the colony of Plymouth, the English settlers and the Wampanoag people got together and shared a fantastic autumn harvest dinner to celebrate the bounteousness from the fertile earth.

Today this celebratory dinner is considered as one of the first Thanksgiving festivities in the early days of the colonies. While that long ago dinner is considered by a lot of people to be the first Thanksgiving celebration, it was, actually, part of a long standing custom of celebrating the harvest season and giving thanks for a large bounty of crops that would last through the long hard winter.

Numerous Native American groups of what would become America, including the Pueblo, Cherokee, Shawnee, Huron, Creek, Blackfoot and many others would hold huge harvest festivals, consisting in ritual dances, races, games and other joyful celebrations of gratefulness many centuries before the arrival of the European peoples.

While historians seem to be unable to certify what was served at the table, we are sure that the pilgrims weren't eating pumpkin pie or building castle towers with the mashed potatoes.

Hundreds of written sources of this period of time report that sort of food, but the best as well the most detailed of these accounts was written by someone named Edward Winslow.

It is from his written account called "A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth" that historians have collected the greatest part of information about this first celebration that would become known as Thanksgiving:

"...Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty..." - Edward Winslow, 1595-1655.

Like all the harvest celebrations throughout history, the overt celebration of gratefulness of the Earth's bounteousness is through a big feast!

That kind of family gatherings especially dedicated to enjoyment and fellowship is easier in Canada than elsewhere in the world. While the official Thanksgiving Day is a Monday, Canadians usually celebrate it during the entire three-day weekend.

Sit back and relax while watching the popular "Thanksgiving Day Classic" football game at the end of the main meal is a Canadian tradition.

Besides the activities inside the house or the family dinner, the Thanksgiving weekend is usually the occasion for a last major outdoor event.

Either admire the many Thanksgiving Day parades or enjoying to take part to a parade into the end of the summer air is another Thanksgiving custom.

Before the cold arrives, it is a perfect time for hiking, fishing or just admiring the spectacular fall colors that are cover the trees.

Churches are decorated with pumpkins, cornucopias, wheat sheaves, corn ears and gourds according to the customs of old European harvest celebrations. There are special scriptural texts and hymns especially consacreated to this celebration of harvest and to show gratefulness to God for his goodness.

Although Thanksgiving is celebrated yearly in the United States since 1863, it is during the twentieth century that it was officially scheduled at the end of November and became a Federal holiday.

It is one of the two great events that are traditionally designated to get together with the family.

While the basic focus is the ubiquitous turkey but other Native American aliments are entire part of the dinner:

• mashed sweet potatoes
• corn
• cranberry sauce
• pumpkin pie

People with a religious mind always offer a prayer to God before the meal.

It is also the time for charitable associations to collect food they will donate as Thanksgiving meals poor people.

The parades of Thanksgiving Day are the largest and most popular of the year!

American Football has become as much a part of the Thanksgiving celebration as the turkey.

The official opening of the Christmas shopping season occurs the very next day of this festival and is known as "Black Friday".

It is common to see, on the gardens or yards of a lot of houses, foddershocks or bunches of cornstalks set round with other Autumn symbols like pumpkins, cushaw, scarecrows and other ornaments related to the fall season.

If you have the time and needed skills, you too could have a great yard decorated by Thanksgiving symbols!

Homemade foddershock Creating a foddershock is very easy.

You get several dried corn stalks, normally left in cornfields after the harvests, and bind them in the middle of the bundle to create a sort of 'tepee' shaped bunching.

Select the area of your garden or yard where you will place the foddershock and sit a scarecrow close to it.

Remember to add some Autumn items like pumpkins, gourds, and other winter squashes.

Happy Thanksgiving!