OK. You had the big feast last week. What was it REALLY like for those Plymouth Pilgrims?

We turn back the clock now, just a bit, to hear from Edward Winslow, who would become the third governor of Plymouth Colony. His writing is one of only two surviving eyewitness accounts of the harvest festival of 1621--the first Thanksgiving:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, so that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others."

This harvest festival wasn't even called Thanksgiving. That term was used in 1623, when badly needed rain saved the colony's crops.

The 1621 harvest festival probably took place sometime between September 21st and November 9th. The previous winter had been brutal. 102 settlers came over on the Mayflower. By spring, only 29 adults and 23 children were left.

The colony's adult women--all four of them--were in charge of the cooking. Remember the names: Elizabeth Hopkins, Elinor Billington, Mary Brewster and Susanna Winslow.

The people ate with knives, a few spoons, but no forks. We hear about three-foot-square napkins, brandy, beer, and few vegetables.

Peggy Baker, director-librarian of the Pilgrim Society and Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, debunks a few myths about the pilgrims:

For starters, pilgrims didn't wear black. Those mournful, somber costumes kids wear in school plays were too rich for their blood. "Black fabric was extremely expensive--only the wealthy wore it," Baker says. Walking off the Mayflower on Dec. 21, 1620, the pilgrims put on quite a colorful show--trousers, shirts and dresses in maroons, greens and blues. For men, bright red and purple vests were quite the rage. Nor did they wear buckles on their hats.

The pilgrims were by no means the first Europeans to land in the Plymouth vicinity. In fact, by 1621, many of the Indians spoke English, after meeting earlier explorers.

The pilgrims didn't meet Indians when they pulled into Plymouth Rock as paintings portray. "Never happened," Baker says. "They met their first Native American, Samoset, three months after they arrived. He walked into the settlement and said, 'Welcome, Englishmen.'

Plymouth Rock is hardly the Rock of Gibraltar, at 5 feet long by 2 feet tall. Today, the rock is one-third its original size, because in 1776 some patriots split it in half, and dragged it to the town's "liberty tree."

Later the rock was again dragged a third of a mile to the front of Pilgrim Hall Museum. The rock was hauled back to the wharf in 1880, where it was cemented together (the crack is noticeable). In 1920, the wharf was torn down and a new portico was erected around the rock.

So what would the Pilgrims of 1621 think of our Thanksgiving? Their meal was but a brief respite from a very hard life. Their daily struggle defined self-reliance.

If the pilgrims were known for rectitude, thrift, sobriety, and discipline, we could be characterized as self-indulgent, careless, spendthrift, and gluttonous--especially on Thanksgiving.

It would serve us well to think back to those early settlers, and to thank God for our many gifts.