Well friends. Another Thanksgiving is upon us. This Thursday brings us the three Fs. Family, food, and football! What a great day to be an American.

We all know the depictions of the first Thanksgiving and a version of the story that is more or less all the same. Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe come together in the fall (of 1621) to celebrate a bountiful harvest. Those who really paid attention to grade school social studies might even remember this occurred near Plymouth, Massachusetts.

A lot of the other details we think we know probably aren’t correct. That doesn’t matter though. What’s important is we still honor the spirit of that unspecified date every fourth Thursday of November. It’s as reliable as Lucy pulling the ball back right before Charlie Brown kicks it.

Sadly, I did not make it to Plymouth on our trip to Boston over the summer. It is less than an hour’s drive from Boston but it just wasn’t in the cards for that trip. What actually got me thinking about this post was watching the 2023 horror film Thanksgiving. The movie itself is nothing to write home about. It is set in Plymouth though. Something about the ridiculous death scenes got me thinking how cool it would be to travel to Plymouth for Thanksgiving.

So I did what I always do, I researched it. There are some pretty cool things to do to give you genuine Thanksgiving fuzzies. Here are some of them.

Food

It is without a doubt the staple of Thanksgiving. You can’t sacrifice your turkey dinner just to travel. Fortunately, you don’t have to. Plimoth Patuxet Museums have you covered. They offer all sorts of Thanksgiving dinner options from buffets to multi-course feasts. Check out their menu here.

The most intriguing option is the “The Story of Thanksgiving” Dinner. The menu looks delightful and it includes a performance by a historical educator. Food and history!

Parade

Many travel to New York to see Macy’s version but how about viewing the nation’s only historically accurate parade? That is what you get in Plymouth on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. America’s Hometown Thanksgiving Parade is “history-brought-to-life as Pilgrims, Native Americans, Soldiers, Patriots, and Pioneers proudly climb out of the history books and onto the streets of Plymouth.”

If you can’t make the parade on Saturday, then make sure to check out the Pilgrim Progress on Thanksgiving where costumed participants reenact the Pilgrims’ Sabbath procession to worship. This is followed by a short Pilgrim worship service observed on the site of the original fort/meetinghouse. 

Museums

Museums are the best way to learn about history. Luckily, Plymouth provides a few options. There are the aforementioned Plimoth Patuxet Museums. Take a walk to see what you may learn while also letting that turkey settle from one of their dining options.

There is also the Pilgrim Hall Museum. It is billed as the nation’s oldest continuously-operating public museum. On display is an unparalleled display of Pilgrim possessions that help tell the story of the people who sought to start new lives in a new world.

Plymouth Rock

And of course, no trip to Plymouth is complete without visiting the site where the Mayflower is said to have first reached the New World. The rock, now preserved under a granite portico in Pilgrim Memorial State Park, has become a cultural icon of the founding of the United States. Over the years, it has been broken, moved, and reconstructed, but it remains an enduring symbol of perseverance and the early colonial history of America.

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If you weren’t in the Thanksgiving spirit before reading this, I bet you are now. I know I am! Though traveling to Plymouth this Thanksgiving is not going to happen for me, it is definitely on my radar. You couldn’t help but have a better understanding and new appreciation of the holiday after a visit to where it got its start. Mark it down on the HwL bucket list. Ooh, sounds like a fun post in itself!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, dear readers. HwL has been a little lax with posts recently but more are coming. Until then, read more about all things history you can do in and around Boston here.

Until next time,