well-wish, thanksgiving/Thanksgiving Day.

As a wellwisher of our country
Well´-wish`

n.

1.

A wish of happiness.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.

thanksgiving
n.

1. An act of giving thanks; an expression of gratitude, especially to God: a hymn of thanksgiving.
2. Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving will be celebrated in the US on Thursday, November 27, 2008.
Like a slow-roasted turkey, the American holiday of Thanksgiving was a long time in the making.
In autumn 1621, about a year after the Mayflower Pilgrims made landfall at Plymouth, they put together a feast and broke bread with their Native American neighbors, the Wampanoag, who were celebrating Keepunumuk, the time of the harvest. The menu featured fowl, venison and fish, along with wheat and corn products. A contemporary account written by colonist Edward Winslow showed the assembled to be content with their lot:

And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us [when we were back in England], yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you [our English brethren] partakers of our plenty.

Sporadic national, regional and individual Thanksgivings followed, but the day did not become an annual, national holiday until 1863. Americans were waging the Civil War, and in the midst of it President Abraham Lincoln, spurred on by the lobbying efforts of writer Sarah Josepha Hale, proclaimed a national day in which to express thanks for the many blessings enjoyed by Americans, e.g., natural resources and population growth, despite the military conflict:

They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

It wasn't till later in the 19th century, though, that the popular image of the "First Thanksgiving" took root. Earlier, while the Indian wars were still raging, scenes of settlers and natives engaging in joint revelry seemed inconceivable.
In 1939, during the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously modified Lincoln's chosen date of the last Thursday of November to the second-to-last Thursday of November in order to extend the post-Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas shopping season. The move was met with confusion and criticism, and in 1942 FDR signed a law making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday of November, a law which is still in effect today. See Franksgiving.
Nowadays, Thanksgiving is one of the few truly secular, nondenominational holidays on the US calendar (the Fourth of July is another). Americans celebrate with a long weekend, a big meal with family and friends (on the menu: foods that reflect the tastes and colors of the autumn harvest, such as roast turkey, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and candied yams), and football.