It is, for many Americans, the least commercial and most heartfelt of holidays.
There are hardly any greeting cards associated with the day, and the exchange of gifts is unheard of. As it has been for nearly 300 years, Thanksgiving is a day to express gratitude, contemplate, think of family and loved ones, and celebrate simplicity.
Observed on the fourth Thursday of November each year, the day harkens back more than 300 years.
On September 6th, in the year 1620, 44 Puritans, who called themselves "Saints", set sail from England.
With them were 66 other travellers they called "Strangers".
The Puritans, a religious conservative group, set sail for America to build a "Holy Kingdom".
The cold, damp trip on the Mayflower took 65 days, and one person had died when land was finally sighted on November 10th, 1620. But the cold, snow and sleet of that first winter killed more than 60 of the group.
The possibility that all might die was real. But on March 16th, 1621, an Indian man, Samoset, walked into the beleaguered village and called out "Welcome!" in English. He had years ago made the acquaintance of an English explorer. He helped the group with food and advice on planting. The exchange of food helped save them and the next year they began a celebration of a mutual harvest. President Abraham Lincoln designated the day a national holiday in 1863.
Since then, Thanksgiving has become a day of family, traditional foods such as turkey and stuffing, corn, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.
But this year, all is different. The mood in the US is more sombre, more thoughtful, and the giving of thanks deeper perhaps than in many years.
For families who lost loved ones in the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11th, it will be a sad day.
Jennifer Nilson said she and her husband used to look forward to Thanksgiving.
"It was one of his favourite holidays," she said of her husband, who died at the WTC.
"Him not being here, I don't even want the holidays to come," she told the Daily News.
Describing the situations of thousands of families, Red Cross officer Bob Dingman said: "Picture whatever celebrations are, and an empty chair."
At Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the US President, Mr Bush, visited with the Army's 101st Airborne Division for a turkey dinner with 150 troops in a mess hall. He was joined by First Lady Laura Bush.
He later spoke to 15,000 troops, giving them an update on the war in Afghanistan, predicting victory.
As usual, Americans headed for airports, train stations, bus terminals and highways, many of them confident and others nervous on the first major holiday travel period since the terrorist attacks.
Across the country, airports were crowded, train and bus stations were filled and highways were jammed - even though the American Automobile Association predicted a 6 per cent decline in Thanksgiving holiday travel this year.
Air travel was down by 20 percent at New York's three major airports. AAA said it expects a record 87 per cent of this year's Thanksgiving travel to be by automobile.
"People seem to be more interested in getting away from crowds and larger metropolitan destinations. Guest ranches, lodges and private getaways are more in demand," Keith Waldon, director of public relations for Virtuoso, a network of travel agents, told CNN. "People are looking for peaceful, restorative type of environments. It's probably partly for safety and partly for sanity," he said. "They would all like to be somewhere with their families. A strong family thing is coming out of this," said Kathleen Argabright, an AAA travel agent in Boise, Idaho. In New York City, the holiday attractions normally draw such crowds that visitors must plan months in advance if they hope to find a hotel vacancy.
But in the wake of the World Trade Centre attack, Manhattan's sidewalks are not jammed with the usual crowds of holiday tourists. Attendance at museums is sparse; the Metropolitan museum of Art has lately begun taking out adverts in newspapers.
Many Broadway shows have closed and the survivors are offering deep discounts. Restaurants are quiet, and the decrease in business has resulted in many redundancies in the business. Almost everywhere in the city that doesn't sleep, queues are almost non-existent.
Elsewhere, in Los Angeles and Chicago and across the country, there is unease mixed with gratitude for the essential pleasures and necessities. Americans living abroad have not only received Thanksgiving greetings from friends and family back home but also from non-Americans as well - a striking difference from years past. "A bunch of non-Americans have been coming up to me at work and have wished me a Happy Thanksgiving," said Scott Wilson, a director of research at Swiss bank UBS Warburg in Singapore.