The Pilgrims who sailed to America were originally members of the English Separatist Church. Before going to America they had fled to Holland to escape religious persecution. Although, in Holland, they enjoyed more religious tolerance, but they eventually became disillusioned with the Dutch way of life. In the hope of a better life, they took the help of a London stock company to move out to America. Most of those making this trip aboard the Mayflower were non-Separatists. Only about one-third of the original colonists were Separatists.
They reached Plymouth in 1620. There, they had to face a terrible winter. Around 46 of the original 102 had died by the next fall. But fortune turned in their favor and the harvest of the next year was bumper. And the remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast, including 91 Indians who had helped the Pilgrims survive their first year. It is believed that the Pilgrims would not have made it through the year without the help of the natives. The feast was more of a traditional English harvest festival than a true "thanksgiving" observance. It lasted three days. Governor William Bradford sent "four men fowling" after wild ducks and geese. It is not certain that wild turkey was part of their feast. However, it is certain that they had venison. The term "turkey" was used by the Pilgrims to mean any sort of wild fowl.
On June 20, 1676, the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, held a meeting to determine how best to express thanks for the good fortune that had seen their community securely established. By unanimous vote they instructed Edward Rawson, the clerk, to proclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving. It is notable that this thanksgiving celebration probably did not include the Indians, as the celebration was meant partly to be in recognition of the colonists' recent victory over the "heathen natives". October of 1777 marked the first time that all 13 colonies joined in a thanksgiving celebration. It also commemorated the patriotic victory over the British at Saratoga. But it was a one-time affair.
George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, although some were opposed to it. There was discord among the colonies, many feeling the hardships of a few Pilgrims did not warrant a national holiday.
And later, President Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the idea of having a day of thanksgiving. It was Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, whose efforts eventually led to what we recognize as Thanksgiving. Hale wrote many editorials championing her cause in her Boston Ladies' Magazine, and later, in Godey's Lady's Book.
Finally, after a 40-year campaign of writing editorials and letters to governors and presidents, Hale's obsession became a reality when, in 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving was proclaimed by every president after Lincoln. The date was changed a couple of times, most recently by Franklin Roosevelt, who set it up one week to the next-to-last Thursday in order to create a longer Christmas shopping season. Public uproar against this decision caused the president to move Thanksgiving back to its original date two years later.
And in 1941, Thanksgiving was finally sanctioned by Congress as a legal holiday, as the fourth Thursday in November.

To celebrate the release of Disney and Tim Burton’s hugely popular Alice in Wonderland, in cinemas now in Disney Digital 3D™, Walt Disney Records and Hello Kids are giving five lucky users the chance to win a copy of the beautiful official soundtrack, created by Burton’s long time collaborator, Danny Elfman. The winners will also receive a copy of Buena Vista Records’ 16-track compilation, Almost Alice, which features Alice in Wonderland’s end credit track “Alice (Underground)” written and performed by Avril Lavigne.
The real meaning of Easter, is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. To Christians, it is the most special day of the year. Yes,the birth of Christ is quite important. But, his resurrection offers the hope of everlasting life to everyone! Easter also is celebrated with the Easter Bunny, colored eggs, jelly beans, and lot's of chocolate. Easter Bunny comes on Saturday night leading to Easter Sunday morning. He brings lots of chocolates and other candies. There is a famous Easter game called the Easter Egg Hunt. Early morning kids go outside to find the many colored Easter eggs that the Easter bunny has hidden the night before. Happy Easter on Hellokids!
Hellokids.com is now available for your iPhone!Find out more than 60 beginner, intermediate, and advanced coloring pages to color-in with your finger. Our finger painting application lets your finger paint directly on the screen or on a photo from your photo gallery. Hellokids allows you to manipulate photos in funny ways. Add glasses, moustaches and other funny objects to your friends or family to make them look funny! When you're done, you can save the image to your photo gallery or send it to a friend. The kids will love this clear and easy to use application. Have fun playing Memory game. This pairs matching game intended to develop attentiveness, recognition and memory skills while entertaining the whole family. Face the challenge in the Impact game. Steer your spaceship and avoid the asteroids for as long as you can. Enjoy our fun-to-play musical game Replay! Listen carefully and try to reproduce melodies and rhythms. Hellokids application is colorful, fun and easy-to-use on a trip or whenever you are out with your kids to amuse or keep them busy!
Check out these fun and easy drawing lessons!! Kids love to draw. Here are some easy step-by-step drawing lessons to learn how to draw cartoon characters. You need a white sheet of paper, a lead pencil, a gum eraser and some felt-tips and colored pencils to color in your drawing ! It's easy! Follow our step by step instructions to create a masterpiece!
Christmas crafts, Halloween crafts, paperdolls, paper crafts for kids, free patterns, coloring pages, Christmas clipart, greeting cards, Valentine's day, Santa Claus, Christmas decorations, Christmas trees, Christmas ornaments, free gifts, Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday! Gifts and Surprises, Chanukah, The Festival of Lights, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year's Day, Groundhog Day, Valentine's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, Easter, Father's Day, The Fourth of July, Canada Day, Rosh Hashana and more paper toys and projects as fast as I can make them!
Fun Kids Crafts, Science Projects, and More. Step-by-step instructions for hundreds of incredibly cool kids crafts and science projects that can be built from everyday household objects. Upload and share your crafts with the world today. Always use your imagination and be creative when building these kids crafts or any others. It's your creation, so be inventive when looking for building supplies — you just may be surprised! When building your project, experiment with new and different ways of putting it together. The most important thing is to have fun.
Hellokids has selected online Easter resources for that big day. How-to videos of Easter Craft, Easter Paper Toys, Jesus Christ coloring pages, Easter History, and many more. A nice collection of Easter Coloring pages including Bunnies, Easter Eggs and Easter Chicks. You could print a bunch of Easter Coloring Pages and make a whole Easter coloring book. Find fun and cool Ideas to celebrate Easter 2010.
Check out these fantastic online coloring pages. Choose the picture you like, pick up the color with the brush and start coloring in your coloring page. Then you can print it out or download to your computer. Enjoy online coloring pages on Hellokids.com !!
Discover our new fantastic machine to create a personal coloring pages with your name. You can write on whatever you want than print it out and color with pencils your coloring page. Choose from our background coloring pages with hearts, flowers, guitars, boy or girl themed pictures, ocean and from our collection of fonts. Hurry up, write your name to color and print it out on hellokids.com.