Assignment 1.
Thanksgiving is a very American holiday. It is also (1) ____ Thanksgiving Day. It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November every year. It used to be a (2) ____ holiday to give thanks to God. There are two versions of the origins of this holiday. One is thanks for the early (3) ____ arriving in America safely. On December the 4th, 1619, a group of English pioneers arrived at a place called Berkeley Hundred, in Virginia. The group made a promise that the day of their (4) ____ should be a "day of thanksgiving" to God. The second version is the thanks given to Native Americans for teaching the pilgrims how to (5) ____ eels and grow corn in Plymouth, Massachusetts. In 1941, President Roosevelt (6) ____ Thanksgiving a federal holiday.
The (7) ____ event of any Thanksgiving is the Thanksgiving dinner. It is traditional to have baked or roasted turkey. This is usually accompanied with mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, (8) ____ vegetables, cranberry sauce, and gravy. Pumpkin pie is the most commonly (9) ____ dessert. The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is one of the busiest times of the year for traveling. It is a four-day or five-day weekend vacation for most schools and colleges, and (10) ____ businesses and government workers get three or four days off. Thanksgiving is also the unofficial signal for Christmas preparations to (11) ____. Once Thanksgiving finishes, stores fill their (12) ____ with Christmas goods. It is also a bad time to be a turkey.