Thanksgiving, the story and the celebration.

My husband’s favorite holiday of the year is Thanksgiving. Set right between the drama of Halloween, and the pageantry of Christmas, Thanksgiving is a simple holiday. A time to be grateful, a time to reflect. Since the beginning of this great American holiday, we have been traveling to gather and celebrate Thanksgiving.

The story of how Thanksgiving came about is a cool one that winds back to the Pilgrim days.

Thanksgiving story!

We all know the history lesson of the Pilgrims and the Native Americans that came to their rescue. However, did you know that the first Thanksgiving services were held as early as 1607 in Virginia, then came the Pilgrim Thanksgiving. Held at Plymouth Rock  on December 13, 1621, the Pilgrims declared a three-day feast in a celebration thanking God and the Native Americans that kept starvation at bay.

It was President George Washington’s proclamation issued on October 3, 1789. His proclamation designated Thursday, November 26 as a National Day of Thanks. Like the Pilgrims before, this thanks was tied to our freedom. Washington thought the need for this day, “sprung from the Almighty’s care of Americans prior to the Revolution, assistance to them in achieving independence, and help in establishing the constitutional government.”

Years later, Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book promoted a Thanksgiving national day. She tried for thirty years to get this accomplished. She wrote a letter to Abraham Lincoln; this may have prompted Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation. Sarah Joseph Hale sounds a bit like an olden days Martha Stewart. She gets credit for the turkey being part of today’s Thanksgiving feast. “In her 1827 novel Northwood, she devoted an entire chapter to a description of a New England Thanksgiving, with a roasted turkey “placed at the head of the table. “

In his 1843 novel Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens mentions that turkeys were used because they were available on most family farms and that they had no other use (they didn’t produce eggs or milk) besides meat. I learned according to the Audubon Society that turkeys were domesticated by Native Americans 2,000 years before the Pilgrims ever arrived. So, their history on US soil predates that first Thanksgiving Day celebration by a long shot.

Lincoln’s Proclamation

It was October of 1863, that President Lincoln Proclaimed setting aside the last Thursday of November as a “day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

On October 6, 1941, that the House declared the last Thursday in November to be the legal Thanksgiving Day. The Senate, then amended the resolution establishing the holiday as the fourth Thursday.

The Day!

We celebrate this day with family, whoever is available, and we pretty much stay traditional with turkey, dressing, potatoes, noodles and pumpkin pie! The days leading up to the event are about as much fun as the day itself. Churches that offer Thanksgiving Day meals in advance are popular in our neck of the woods and well attended.

This is a truly American holiday. Families take a minute to be grateful. We are thankful for the blessings that have come way. I had a health scare that has been averted, we remember those we have lost and, cherish those still