Happy Thanksgiving to you!

A former teacher and fellow blogger started a tradition in her classroom called Thankful Thursday. She did this, she wrote, because “gratitude is a gift.” She wrote, in part,

Every year around this time, most schoolchildren hear the same ol’ Thanksgiving story in their classrooms across the nation. That so-called official story is a heartwarming tale of how the Pilgrims and Native Americans shared a bountiful feast together. But it does not tell the full truth about what really happened on the Plymouth Plantation. 

During Thanksgiving Day, most families gather around a bountiful feast and give thanks for all the blessings in their lives. As nearly everyone was taught in primary school, the origin of Thanksgiving traces back to the first plentiful feast held between Puritan settlers and the Wampanoag Indians in the 1620’s. Unfortunately, the official story of Thanksgiving leaves out quite a few important details.