Thanksgiving holiday is celebrated in various countries as a day of expressing thanks as well as sacrifice of the blessing of the harvest and for the preceding year. The Pilgrims i.e., English colonists did celebrated thanksgiving as a part of religion, but these were not days of feasting, but of prayer. In 1621, Wampanoag Native Americans and Plymouth colonists shared the colony’s first very successful Autumn harvest feast.
Before 1863, thanksgiving was celebrated individually by states and colonies. Abraham Lincoln, the then President of the United States proclaimed a national holiday of Thanksgiving to be celebrated each November. Although Thanksgiving has deep historical roots in cultural and religious traditions, it is also celebrated as a secular holiday since long.