Thanksgiving Day 感恩节的英文介绍
Thanksgiving Day, annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people. The American holiday is particularly rich in legend and symbolism, and the traditional fare of the Thanksgiving meal typically includes turkey, bread stuffing, potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. With respect to vehicular travel, the holiday is often the busiest of the year, as family members gather with one another.
感恩节，美国和加拿大一年一度的国定假日，庆祝过去一年的丰收和其他祝福。美国人普遍认为，他们的感恩节是仿照1621年普利茅斯的英国殖民者（朝圣者）和万帕诺亚格人共享的丰收大餐。这个美国节日特别富有传奇色彩和象征意义，传统的感恩节大餐通常包括火鸡、面包馅、土豆、小红莓和南瓜派。随着汽车旅行的增多，假期家庭成员的团聚，往往是一年中最繁忙的。
Plymouth's Thanksgiving began with a few colonists going out "fowling," possibly for turkeys but more probably for the easier prey of geese and ducks, since they "in one day killed as much as…served the company almost a week." Next, 90 or so Wampanoag made a surprise appearance at the settlement's gate, doubtlessly unnerving the 50 or so colonists. Nevertheless, over the next few days the two groups socialized without incident. The Wampanoag contributed to the feast, which included the fowl and probably , , , stews, , and . Since Plymouth had few buildings and manufactured goods, most people ate outside while sitting on the ground or on with plates on their laps. The men fired , ran races, and drank , struggling to speak in broken English and Wampanoag. This was a rather disorderly affair, but it sealed a treaty between the two groups that lasted until (1675–76), in which hundreds of colonists and thousands of lost their lives.
普利茅斯的感恩节开始时，一些殖民者外出"捕鸟"，可能是为了火鸡，但更可能是为了更容易被捕获鹅和鸭子，因为它们"一天捕猎很多次……接近一周又为公司服务"。接下来，大约90名万帕诺亚格人在定居点门口出人意料地出现，毫无疑问，50多个殖民者感到不安。尽管如此，在接下来的几天里，这两个群体毫无意外地进行了社交活动。万帕诺亚格人为这场盛宴贡献了鹿肉，其中包括家禽，可能还有鱼、鳗鱼、贝类、炖菜、蔬菜和啤酒。由于普利茅斯几乎没有建筑和制成品，大多数人坐在地上或桶上吃饭，桶上放着盘子。这些人开枪，赛跑，喝酒，努力用蹩脚的英语和万帕诺亚格语说话。这是一个相当混乱的事件，但它签订了两个团体之间的条约，一直持续到菲利普国王的战争（1675-76年），其中数百名殖民者和数千名美洲原住民失去了他们的生命。
The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "Thanksgivings," days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought. The U.S. Continental Congress proclaimed a national Thanksgiving upon the enactment of the Constitution, for example. Yet, after 1798, the new U.S. Congress left Thanksgiving declarations to the states; some objected to the national government's involvement in a religious observance, Southerners were slow to adopt a New England custom, and others took offense over the day's being used to hold partisan speeches and parades. A national Thanksgiving Day seemed more like a lightning rod for controversy than a unifying force.
新英格兰殖民者习惯于定期庆祝"感恩节"，即感谢上帝赐予他们的祝福，如军事胜利或干旱结束。例如，美国大陆会议在宪法颁布后宣布全国感恩节。然而，1798年后，新的美国国会将感恩节宣言留给各州；一些人反对国民政府参与宗教仪式，南方人迟迟不采纳新的英格兰习俗，另一些人则习惯于这一天举行党派演讲和游行表示来表达不满。一个全国性的感恩节似乎更像是一个争论的避雷针，而不是一个统一的力量。
Thanksgiving Day did not become an official holiday until Northerners dominated the federal government. While sectional tensions prevailed in the mid-19th century, the editor of the popular magazine Godey's Lady's Book, Sarah Josepha Hale, campaigned for a national Thanksgiving Day to promote unity. She finally won the support of President Abraham Lincoln. On October 3, 1863, during the Civil War, Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26.
直到北方人控制了联邦政府，感恩节才成为官方节日。在19世纪中叶，地区紧张局势盛行之际，流行杂志《戈迪夫人的书》的编辑莎拉·约瑟法·黑尔（Sarah Josepha Hale）为全国性的感恩节发起运动，以促进团结。她终于赢得了亚伯拉罕·林肯总统的支持。1863年10月3日，在内战期间，林肯宣布在11月26日星期四庆祝感恩节。
The holiday was annually proclaimed by every president thereafter, and the date chosen, with few exceptions, was the last Thursday in November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, attempted to extend the Christmas shopping season, which generally begins with the Thanksgiving holiday, and to boost the economy by moving the date back a week, to the third week in November. But not all states complied, and, after a joint resolution of Congress in 1941, Roosevelt issued a proclamation in 1942 designating the fourth Thursday in November (which is not always the last Thursday) as Thanksgiving Day.
此后，每一位总统每年都会宣布这个节日，除少数例外，选定的日期是11月的最后一个星期四。然而，富兰克林D罗斯福总统试图延长圣诞节购物季（通常从感恩节开始），并通过将圣诞节购物季推迟一周，至11月的第三周来提振经济。但并不是所有的州都遵守了，1941年国会通过一项联合决议后，罗斯福于1942年发布公告，将11月的第四个星期四（并不总是最后一个星期四）定为感恩节。
