Happy holidays!

Every year, on the fourth Thursday of November, Americans travel from far and wide to gather with their families.

Around the table, each person says one thing they are grateful for over the past year, before tucking into a feast of pumpkin pie, yams and, most importantly, the Thanksgiving turkey. Bellies stuffed, it's time to settle down and watch the football.

The origins of Thanksgiving stretch back to 1621, when early English pilgrims in the Plymouth colony, modern-day Massachusetts, invited the Wampanoag native tribe to share in a feast giving thanks for the harvest. They probably ate wild turkey, a smaller ancestor of the modern bird.

Communal feasts of gratitude sprung up sporadically in the following years across different states, but it was not until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.

In fact, the story of the 1621 feast was not widely regarded as the "first Thanksgiving" until the 1920s, when it was spread through school books to present an idealised version of Americans.

Native American writer Sean Sherman says that the Thanksgiving story "neglected to mention the amount of death, destruction and land-grabbing that occurs against the first peoples, setting the tone for the next 200 years".

Indeed, native populations were decimated by violent wars with colonists and European diseases. It has even been suggested that the settlers deliberately gave the natives smallpox-infected blankets to drive them off the land.

For most Americans, Thanksgiving remains a time to count your blessings with family and friends.

London-bred editor Sarah Ivens was sceptical about the holiday when she first moved to the US.

"Being open and vulnerable is something we often ridicule Americans for but, I confess, I was genuinely moved."

Germany, Canada, Japan, Liberia, Granada and the Netherlands all have their own variations on Thanksgiving.

There is increasing psychological evidence that well-being and health are improved by taking more time "to think about what we've got to be grateful for".

Should we all join in?

No way, say some. The nations of the world have enough of their own traditions and holidays. You can be appreciative of your life and your family without the need to sit around and celebrate it once a year. Besides, why would we want to take inspiration from a holiday that is inextricably linked with the oppression of native Americans?

We have so much to be thankful for, respond others, and we'd all be happier if we remembered that more often. A Thanksgiving holiday would be a time to get together with people we love and focus on what's important, free from the commercialised present-buying of Christmas. It could also be more inclusive of all religions and cultures.