The holidays are coming soon, during the holiday’s is the time to spend time with your family as you may know. Everybody in my family are always excited for Christmas because you come to our house in the morning. Since you are Santa Claus you have the power to go around and give good kids like me presents that we wish for. Every Christmas you brighten kids mornings. I hope you brighten mine, you can do that by giving me a reindeer bell. This gift will allow me to prove to my friends that you are real. I have been asking for a reindeer bell for the past two years and I’m not giving up until I get one. This will be a good way to prove to my family, friends, and I that you are real.

Also, this reindeer bell will be in good hands so don’t worry about a thing. This reindeer bell will be put on our Christmas tree. And Santa Claus please, please can you give me a reindeer bell from Rudolph. It is a dream of mine to get a reindeer bell from Rudolph.   

As you know I am very good and only make minor mistakes. Not having a reindeer bell enables my friends, and many others to believe in you. As I mentioned before I have a Christmas Tree and it has ornaments if you give me this very special bell it will be on there forever. Making sure that some of my friends believe you is a hastle. It is very hard, since I believe you I strive to make other feel like me. With a reindeer bell for proof it won’t be a hastle but very easy to convince these kid.

I know this time of year you have to fulfill the request of other kids but can you please with all my heart fulfill mine. I will be so grateful if you give this to me. Grating my Christmas wish will make me and all the kids that will soon believe you so very happy. If you can not give me this I will still thank you for being so kind and giving me those other gifts that I have asked for.    

From,
Sweta Patel

How Thanksgiving Started

            The first Thanksgiving was probably not what we think it was. The Thanksgiving we now celebrate a  feast of togetherness between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans-- was not the original gathering.
It is true that Squanto and his fellow Native Americans helped the Pilgrims to grow crops and get sap from trees and survive the harsh winters of what would become New England. But the very first harvest feast that these two peoples enjoyed was not called Thanksgiving. Rather it was a celebration of the fall harvest, when vegetables were pulled from the ground and off stalks and made ready for a big meal.

               Pilgrims and Native Americans dined together at the same tables, yes, and they played games together and demonstrated their bow-and-arrow and musket-shooting skills to each other. But they didn't call it Thanksgiving until 1624. That year, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth colony, proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving that was really a day of fasting and prayer. (Remember, fasting is when you don't eat. So, Thanksgiving started out as a day of not eating.)  Also, the day the members of the Plymouth Colony celebrated this day of fasting and prayer in thanksgiving was November 29.

So we have two ideas coming together: a day of Thanksgiving for the fall harvest, on which people fasted and prayed, and a great feast to celebrate the bounty of the fall harvest. Since both activities celebrated the same thing--the fall harvest--it's only natural that they eventually merged (like so many other American holidays).

This merged celebration continued informally through the years, until 1863, when President Abrabham Lincoln declared the fourth Thursday of November a national holiday called Thanksgiving.

How did we decide on eating Turkey? Well, that's another story.

Gratitude

I am grateful for my home, family, and food. Some people don’t have shelter and some people don’t have family because they don’t have food. Family is very important because without family the only support you have is from yourself. Having a secure shelter is very important because without it you cant live thought the winter and rain (cold weather.) Food is very important because without food you can get dehydrated and starve to death. So remember don’t ever think you don’t have enough because some don’t have it at all.