Thanksgiving Origins Novels & Stories

“The head keeps you accurate. The chest keeps you motivated when the head gets tired.” She writes something in the notebook. I go back to my office. *** Thanksgiving falls on the last Thursday of November. My mother has been hosting it for twenty-two years. It is not negotiable. It has never been negotiable. We arrive at noon. Samuel brings the rum cake from Atlantic Avenue and two bottles of wine. Priya is there with her husband, Marcus. My aunt is from the Bronx. Her son, who is studying finance at CUNY, asks Samuel about the art market for forty minutes. Mrs. Patterson’s granddaughter, Kezia, the Fordham law student, is applying for clerkships and using the Okafor cases as research exampl

author pov Over the next few weeks, preparations for a human Thanksgiving holiday were away. The kitchen was a non-stop activity of baking and prepping for the big meal. The entire haunted territory had been transformed into a harvest field with haystacks, dried cornstalks, pumpkins, squash, dried corn, and beautiful fall mums of all colors.

Ivy said. Gwen nodded. Of course, It was. Of the eleven families that made up Zelda’s pack, Zack’s family was the one to host the celebration this year since their son was mature enough to choose his mate. Every year, a family whose children were old enough to pick a mate came together and hosted the celebration. This year, it was Zack’s family and with them being the leaders of the pack, they were hosting it big. “I never knew the pack house was this big.” Ivy commented off handedly.

"The dinner was really good. Your mother is a great cook." "Yes she is. Wait until you taste her Christmas dinner. It's almost as good as her Thanksgiving one." There went his runaway mouth. Nothing like jumping the gun and making plans weeks down the road and before they'd even ironed some of the more pressing issues in their budding relationship. She didn't let him off the hook. "Is that an invitation, or a statement?" she asked. "Seems kind of early to be planning that far ahead. October isn't even finished yet." Unlike their American counterparts, Canadians celebrated their Thanksgiving in October.

The Thanksgiving dinner that was meant to celebrate new beginnings now felt like a grim reminder of the chaos and danger surrounding us. This was indeed a bloody Thanksgiving.

Their efforts had filled the apartment with a radiating heat and the sweet and savory aromas had lingered long into the night like a warm, fragrant kiss. In the morning, Evelyn had risen early, warmed the oven and started the turkey cooking. With the same enthusiasm she’d felt as a child, they’d all dressed, then crowded into a cab and met Justin and Lily along the parade route for the great parade, now a New York tradition. Evelyn had been far too young to remember even hearing about the first Thanksgiving Day parade which occurred not in New York but was held by Gimbel Brothers Department Store in Philadelphia in 1920. But she could remember something special about each one of the parades

she bowed her head and offered Electra a carved turnip. “Thank you,” Electra said, accepting the gift. The woman bowed slightly and then scurried away. “Turnip carving predates the pumpkin. The pumpkin is more of an American thing.” “I did not know that. I just thought we did turnips because we were werewolves,” he admitted as a woman gave them each a soul cake. “Just another part of our pagan heritage.” “Wiccan,” Electra said softly. “Halloween is based on the Wiccan holiday Samhain. Our lineage predates that branch of religion.”

He stopped every few minutes to tug at someone’s sleeve, asking questions in that curious voice of his. “What’s Thanksgiving, NoNo?” he asked, staring up at Kat’s father as if the man held all the answers. Kat’s father crouched down, his voice warm. “It’s a day we spend together, Koda. A day to be thankful for what we have—family, food, and each other.” Koda frowned, chewing on the word. “Thankful?” Kat’s mother joined in, smoothing his hair. “It means we remember the good things, sweetheart. We say thank you for them.”

You have become such a beauty! And I really forgot about the holiday. Thanksgiving is celebrated by all werewolves: wolves, foxes, and bears - this is gratitude to the Creators for salvation, for not leaving their creatures to die and still do not leave them, helping someone with a word, someone with a deed, someone with advice. And although my mother and I never received help from these very Creators, we still celebrated this holiday every year on January 7th and, unlike the New Year, mother never went anywhere.

When the fighting was done. --- Thanksgiving came to Pedro's Grove—not the American holiday, but a harvest celebration that had been part of the valley's traditions for generations. The villagers gathered in the community center, bringing dishes made from the last of the autumn vegetables, the final jars of preserves, the first loaves of bread baked with the new season's flour.