Yesterday, a nation put its life on hold. From Phoenix to Providence, Portland to St Petersburg, the people of the United States celebrated Thanksgiving - an annual holiday devoted to giving thanks for the good things in life.

Thanksgiving is one of the most significant dates in the US calendar. An estimated 276 million Americans spent the afternoon eating dinner with their families. 

They consumed 40 million whole turkeys, 80 million pounds of cranberries and $96m worth of stuffing, followed up with 50 million pumpkin pies. During dinner, they gave thanks for the people and things that had brought them happiness in the year gone.

The First Thanksgiving is traditionally said to be in 1621, the story goes that pilgrim settlers and members of the native WampanoagA loose confederation of tribes. Their relationship with the settlers is not quite as the story of Thanksgiving tells it. The settlers brought across smallpox which turned into a deadly epidemic. Hundreds of Wampanoag died. The colonists took their land and sold survivors into slavery. tribe came together for a three-day feast to celebrate the harvest after months of hardship.

In 1789, President George Washington declared the first formal Thanksgiving, and then in 1863 President Abraham Lincoln made it a national holiday. It has since grown to include a slew of traditions, including the world's largest parade and the presidential turkey pardoningSince 1989, the US president annually "pardons" two turkeys from being eaten..

Thanksgiving might be good, overeating aside. One paper asked 172 students to record their feelings over three weeks. It found that most felt significantly more positive on Thanksgiving than on other days. 

Psychologists even claim that simply giving thanks can lift us up. As Harvard professor Arthur C Brooks says: "Thankfulness has been strongly and consistently shown to raise human beings' happiness." Gratitude stimulates the part of our brain that rewards us, makes us more resilient and strengthens our bonds with others.

Thanksgiving is only observed in a handful of countriesAs well as the US, thanksgiving days are celebrated in Canada, Liberia, Grenada and Saint Lucia.. But perhaps it should be marked everywhere. Unlike Christmas - which has become a celebration of consumerismSociety's obsession with acquiring consumer goods. and all about shiny new things - Thanksgiving asks us to be grateful for what we already have.

History is full of figures who have found happiness in gratitude. The Buddha taught that thankfulness was on the road to NirvanaA state of being in which there is no suffering or doubt. In Buddhism, this also means freedom from the endless cycle of death and rebirth that Buddhists believe is common to all Earthly life.. Christian saint Francis of Assisi practiced a "joyful asceticismA phrase used by the British writer GK Chesterton to describe St Francis. Asceticism is the avoidance of indulgence. " that celebrated all the living things on Earth.

Valuing what we have helps us deal with traumatic events. In 2018, trainee doctor Grace Spence Green was paralysed after a man fell on her from 120 ft. Afterwards, rather than anger, Green said she felt "grateful" that the man survived and that she could continue her studies.

Giving thanks can make us happier. Yet some think a day of celebration is not the best route. Thanksgiving makes Americans happier, but it can cause stress, as people travel, cook complicated dishes and interact with family members they dislike.

If gratitude is always good, why limit it to once a year? Like the Buddha and St Francis, we should thread it through our entire lives and show our thankfulness whenever we can. Thanksgiving should be a state of life, not a holiday from it.

Absolutely, say some. Everyone feels gratitude, for different reasons and at different times. But Thanksgiving gives people a space to come together and express their gratitude to others, so that the positive effects of thankfulness are magnified. Plus, a festive feast is never a bad thing.

Never, say others. It is all well and good for citizens of the world's richest country to gather for a big dinner and express their thanks. But to ask residents of poverty-filled, war-torn nations to join hands in gratitude is at best insensitive, at worst cruel. No-one should be forced to feel grateful.