Each year on the fourth Thursday in November, Americans gather for a day of feasting, football and family. While today’s Thanksgiving celebrations would likely be unrecognizable to attendees of the original 1621 harvest meal, it continues to be a day for Americans to come together around the table—albeit with some updates to pilgrim’s menu.

There have been discussions of exactly what day that first Thanksgiving took place but according to attendee Edward Winslow there were 90 Native Americans and 53 pilgrims who participated. Although the New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating “thanksgiving” – thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought, it was the year 1623 that made Thanksgiving significant. That Thanksgiving the order to recognize the event came from civil authority (Governor Bradford) and not from the church, making it likely the first civil recognition of Thanksgiving in New England.

It has been celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863 when, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens” to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November. We wish you all a very joyous Thanksgiving as we give thanks for all the glorious music that is created and shared every day.