Argumentative Essay About Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday in the United States, which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November every year. Although the way holidays are celebrated over time, thanksgiving has always been a holiday feast. However, Thanksgiving is more than just eating food together with your family. For instance, some families do charity work for the poor people and create a Thanksgiving dinner for them, other family’s watch sport in addition to the food that they eat together. One part that is common at almost every Thanksgiving dinner is the type of food that is served. Families in the United States have celebrated Thanksgiving for hundreds of years, but the way it is celebrated has slightly changed from the first Thanksgiving. To be able to explain

what Thanksgiving is, traditional dishes of the holiday, how it is celebrated, the history of Thanksgiving, and what has changed about the holiday because of immigration will be explained.
People who celebrate Thanksgiving usually think of food because it is such a big part of the holiday.

The table can be filled with many different types of foods, and it differs from family to family. However, there are some foods that are seen at almost every Thanksgiving table. First off, the turkey, it is the most important part of the celebration for most families in the United States. There are multiple reasons to why the turkey has become such a big part of Thanksgiving. For example, a colonist named William Bradford wrote in his journals that colonists hunted wild turkeys during autumn of 1621, which is named as the first Thanksgiving. Another reason to why the turkey is an important part of the holiday is because the birds are big and can feed a lot of people compared to other birds such as chickens (Trex, 2008). Although the turkey is the most important food on the table for most families, it is common for most families to also serve some sort of sweet potatoes, for example, a sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. As Thanksgiving is a feast holiday a dessert is usually also served, one of the most common desserts on Thanksgiving is a pumpkin pie. The pumpkin has been around for hundreds of years, and always been a part of thanksgiving, however, it is more likely that the pumpkin was served after being baked or stewed rather than a pie on the first years when Thanksgiving were celebrated (Trex, 2008). As it is a feast holiday the table has many more types of foods, but it varies from family to family what is put onto the table, however, the turkey, sweet potatoes, and the pumpkin pie is almost always found at every Thanksgiving

table.
Not everyone thinks about what the different types of foods symbolize at Thanksgiving; however, the different types of foods that are served at the holiday symbolizes different parts of the holiday. For example, as mentioned before the turkey is an important part of the Thanksgiving dinner, and the turkey is a symbol of friendship and divinity, which one of the reasons to why the turkey is such a big part of the thanksgiving. The sweet potato that also is very common to see at a Thanksgiving table has important symbolic value, sweet potatoes are a symbol of peace and that it can resolve any problem. In addition, the pumpkin pie’s symbolic value is that it symbolizes spiritual significance because early societies saw round objects, such as the pumpkin to have a spiritual significance (Trex, 2008). Although almost every type of food has some sort of symbolic value, it is not that often that we think about what the food we eat actually symbolizes. However, the food that is served at Thanksgiving has symbolic value that symbolizes different parts of the holiday.
Thanksgiving is celebrated differently from family to family, however, there parts of the celebration that you find common at most of the households in the United States. As mentioned before, the food is an important part of thanksgiving, and it is most common for a family to get together while eating the food that usually is prepared and cooked at home. During thanksgiving many people also like to help out people who are less fortune. For example, many people help out charities during the day where they serve food a Thanksgiving dinner to hundreds of people, and then at night go home and have their own Thanksgiving dinner (Easton, 2014). In addition, some families enjoy watching football on Thanksgiving Day, while others enjoy parades that are held in cities throughout the United States. Thanksgiving is a widely celebrated holiday in the United States, but the way families celebrate the holiday differs from family to family, but one part remains the same in all families is that a lot of food is eaten.
People in the United States have celebrated thanksgiving for almost four hundred years, as the first Thanksgiving celebration was in October 1621 (Bradford & Paget, 2006). However, the first ever thanksgiving was not celebrated in the same way as Thanksgiving currently is celebrated. In October 1621 when the first thanksgiving was held, it lasted for three days and dozens of people celebrated it together. One of the most important parts to Thanksgiving when it first was celebrated was to thank God. However, on the first Thanksgiving celebration they also had a feast, which is a part of the Thanksgiving celebration that has not changed over the years. The food that is eaten today when we celebrate thanksgiving is not that similar to what the people ate on the first thanksgiving celebration because Thanksgiving started of as harvest feast (Bradford & Paget, 2006). Although the first Thanksgiving celebration was in 1621, it was not a holiday that was celebrated by every family in the United States because it was not an official holiday. However, in 1789 George Washington made Thanksgiving Day into an official holiday in the United States. As Washington had announced the Thanksgiving Day to be an official holiday, it started to be celebrated more among families throughout the United States (Schiffman, 2016). Although the first Thanksgiving celebration is not alike how thanksgiving is currently celebrated, there are still similarities with that it is a feast, and that you are supposed to be thankful.
Over the past few hundred years many people have immigrated to the United States, which has changed the way that some people celebrate Thanksgiving. Most families still have many similarities about how they celebrate Thanksgiving with the first Thanksgiving Day. However, as about forty million people have immigrated to the United States we do see some difference in how some immigrants celebrate Thanksgiving compared to non-immigrants. For example, many immigrants usually have some type of food from their own culture on Thanksgiving in addition to some of the most common foods such as the Turkey (Pace, 2014). The celebration of Thanksgiving has not changed that much in American families that do not have any affiliation with other countries. However, as more people will immigrate in the United States there most likely will be seen more changes in the types of food over the next years, but the most important types of food will most likely stay the same.
Thanksgiving is a very important holiday to almost everyone in the United States, and the way the holiday is celebrated is similar between all households. The most important part for most families is to gather and eat a lot of food and be thankful for everything. At almost all of the Thanksgiving dinner’s turkey, sweet potatoes, and some sort of pumpkin will be available as they have symbolic value that adds to the holiday. Thanksgiving has been celebrated for hundreds of years and it is still widely celebrated and will be celebrated for many more years, but with a chance of slightly different types of foods because of the high numbers of immigration.