Thanksgiving is one of the biggest celebrations of the year - but there are some people who decide not to take part in the festivities.
Every year, millions of Americans get together with their friends and families to celebrate on the fourth Thursday of November - and enjoy a feast with lots of turkey.
While it's not celebrated in the UK, the US National Holiday is also observed in a number of other countries around the world such as Canada, the Netherlands and Australia.
Thanksgiving may be very special for some people, but for others it's a deeply controversial holiday due to its contentious history and claims of cultural appropriation.
In general, Thanksgiving is a feast to give thanks for the fruits of the previous harvest.
There is controversy surrounding when the first Thanksgiving actually happened, with most Americans believing it was the three-day celebration between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe in 1621 in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The Pilgrims and their Native American neighbours had signed a mutual protection treaty the spring before and the feast was in honour of a successful first harvest.
Others are convinced the first was actually in 1619 in Virginia, with a Virginia state senator arguing against President John F Kennedy in 1962.
"America's First Thanksgiving was actually celebrated in Virginia in 1619,” the senator told the president in a letter, referring to a religious ceremony that English settlers held when they arrived in Berkeley Plantation near Richmond. "Please issue an appropriate correction."
"You are quite right," came the reply from Mr Kennedy's special assistant, the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. "I can only plead unconquerable New England bias on the part of the White House staff."
But the main issue for most people is that the holiday is viewed to be a celebration of the conquest of Native Americans by colonists
Many groups actively protest against what they see as an offensive glorification of a group of people who plundered and stole their land and brought them, among other delights, syphilis.
Professor Robert Jensen, of the University of Texas at Austin, has suggested in that Americans replace the holiday with a "National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting".
He wrote: "One indication of moral progress in the United States would be the replacement of Thanksgiving Day and its self-indulgent family feasting with a National Day of Atonement accompanied by a self-reflective collective fasting."
There are a number of famous faces who choose not to celebrate Thanksgiving, including legendary singer Cher.
Cher
When asked by a fan in 2013 whether she takes part in the festivities, Cher said she she believes Thanksgiving is a holiday that glorifies "a great crime".
It started with a kind message, when she wrote: "2 My Crew… I Hope Tomm.is a Glorious day 4 ALL OF U Remember.. A Kind Word, Gesture, Or Compliment can make ANY1′s DAY! THANX4BeingThere4Me."
Then Cher went on to explain she doesn't celebrate, writing: "Not 2 celebrate the beginning of a GREAT Crime."
Explaining what she meant, she added: "Stealing Land, from a ppl, Who believed, Owning Land Was LIke Owning SKY! We gave them Blankets laced w/Smallpox."
Sarah Silverman
Comedian Sarah Silverman is clearly not a fan, as she gave a sarcastic take on the holiday with a video for Funny or Die
Explaining the 'meaning' of Thanksgiving, she said: "The turkey we kill is a symbol of the Native Americans we killed.
"We're so grateful for their farming techniques that they taught us, as we learned to harvest our own food on the land we took.
"We are giving thanks for being American. God bless America and its greedy self righteous heritage."
She is also part of Farm Sanctuary's Adopt a Turkey project this year, urging animal lovers to use the money they plan to spend on buying a bird to eat to adopt one instead.
"You know 68 million turkeys will be killed in the holiday season alone," she hared in her statement supporting the project.
"Farm Sanctuary offers a different way that we can celebrate Turkey Day while also making a difference."
Alicia Silverstone
American actress Alicia Silverstone is definitely not a Thanksgiving fan and she has joined the same turkey-loving campaign as Sarah.
The Batman & Robin star, who stopped eating animal products in 1998, has re-christened the holiday as 'save the turkey day'.
In 2016, she marked the holiday on Instagram by posting a couple of snapshots of a lamb nuzzling a sheep.
They were accompanied by the caption: "Approximately 46 MILLION of these sweet beings are slaughtered for #thanksgiving each year!
"Give thanks without centering the holiday around the body of someone that didn’t want, or deserve, to die.
"Celebrate life! There are so many insane delicious alternatives to turkey."
Shailene Woodley
Divergent actress Shailene Woodley hasn't held back when criticising Thanksgiving.
In October 2016, she was arrested for protesting the construction of a multibillion dollar oil pipeline that would run through Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
The following month, Shailene supported protestors and boycotted Thanksgiving, claiming it was "founded on a massacre".
"Today is a day that many call Thanksgiving, and it's a day where kids in elementary school in America are taught false narratives about our native brothers and sisters," she said while in tears.
"From the time we're little kids, we cut out cardboard paper pictures of pilgrims and feasts and turkeys, and yet none of our children know the truth about not only what happened to Native Americans when Westerners decided to colonize this country, but what is still happening to Native Americans."
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