Those of us that are fortunate enough to live in the United States of America have so much to be thankful for.

We have the freedom to worship as we wish, we have the freedom to be educated and choose what career field we would like to work in, we have the freedom to live in the manor we would like to live and on and on. There are so many things to be grateful for.

Thanksgiving day is the honorary day to remember everything we have to be thankful for.

We have all heard the story about the pilgrims and the Indians having a peaceful feast celebrating the first Thanksgiving.

I thought it might be fun to tell you about some of the myths associated with Thanksgiving. Here are a few of the myths listed on the website, history.com.

Myth: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.

Fact: The first feast wasn’t repeated, so it wasn’t the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn’t even call the day Thanksgiving. To them a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast such as: dancing, singing secular songs, playing games – wouldn’t have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.

Myth: The pilgrims wore only black and white clothing. They had buckles on their hats, garments and shoes.

Fact: Buckles did not come into fashion until later in the seventeenth century and black and white were commonly worn only on Sunday and formal occasions. Women typically dressed in red, earthy green, brown, blue, violet, and gray, While men wore clothing in white, beige, black, earthy green and brown.

Myth: The pilgrims brought furniture with them on the Mayflower.

Fact: The only furniture that the pilgrims brought on the Mayflower was chests and boxes. They constructed wood furniture once they settled in Plymouth.

Myth: The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a navigational mistake it ended up in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Fact: The pilgrims were in fact planning to settle in Virginia, but not the modern–day state of Virginia. They were part of the Virginia Company, which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The pilgrims had intended to go to the Hudson River region in New York State, which would have been considered “Northern Virginia”, but they landed in Cape Cod instead. Treacherous seas prevented them from venturing further south.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!