Thanksgiving isn't all about watching football and stuffing your belly until your pants button pops off.
Now more than ever, it's about remembering how people from vastly different cultures and backgrounds can form a partnership. The Puritans were exhausted when they landed near Plymouth Rock some 400 years ago. Were it not for the generosity of the Native Americans who welcomed them with open arms.
That part of history isn't in dispute. Florida historians, however, believe that the first Thanksgiving, the one Americans are raise to believe was between Pilgrims and Indians, first happened in Florida.
According to University of Florida professor Michael Gannon, Spaniards and the indigenous Timucua tribe dined together in 1565, some 55 years before Puritans reached Cape Cod. While they didn't have dinners staples we have come to associate with Thanksgiving - like turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie - early settlers still ate heartily, dining on pork, biscuits, and cabbage while washing it down with red wine.
"It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land," Gannon wrote in his book "The Cross in the Sand."
Some historians agree with Gannon in that the first Thanksgiving took place in Florida, only they argue that the Timucua tribe courted French colonists one year earlier. Unfortunately, years of bloodshed between the French and Spaniards washed away this part of American history, giving way to a more detailed version written in modern textbooks; one where Pilgrims and Indians broke bread for the first time.
Memorable Thanksgiving quotes and sayings
"Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest" - William Blake
"You may have heard of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There's another day you might want to know about: Giving Tuesday. The idea is pretty straightforward. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, shoppers take a break from their gift-buying and donate what they can to charity." - Bill Gates
"I am thankful for what I am and have. My Thanksgiving is perpetual." - Henry David Thoreau
"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land." - Jon Stewart
"He who thanks but with the lips thanks but in the part; the full, the true Thanksgiving comes from the heart." - J.A. Shedd
"Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live." - Jacqueline Winspear
"Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants." - Kevin James
"It's very important to give back as a youth. It's as simple as helping an old lady across the street or giving up your seat on the bus for someone who is pregnant." - Queen Latifah
"Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves." - Henry Ward Beecher