The Origins of The Day
Today is the U.S. national holiday called Thanksgiving. Obviously, the origin of the event dates back some 400 years to the Pilgrim era, revisionist history these days notwithstanding.
The concept, then as now, is to give thanks to the Almighty for the bounty we have been blessed to receive.
The first National Proclamation of Thanksgiving was given by the Continental Congress in 1777…this, despite the fact that the congress was in York Pennsylvania, because the British occupied the national capital at Philadelphia.
The first Thanksgiving Day under our current form of government was established by proclamation of the new president, George Washington, in October of 1789. The next time Washington issued such a proclamation was in 1795, and that year Thanksgiving Day was on February 19.
Abraham Lincoln established the more modern precedent of presidential proclamations, with the idea that the final Thursday in November would be Thanksgiving. FDR flipped that to declare the fourth Thursday of November as the date, in deference to those Novembers that had five weeks. Many say that was to expand the Christmas shopping season more consistently, and there’s evidence to support that.
It was actually not until late 1941 that Congress passed legislation establishing what we have now…the fourth Thursday of November…as the day to commemorate.
Sadly, these days, Thanksgiving has become a time for a massive meal—too often without the prayer of thanks for the bounty, watching a department store’s parade on television, planning for massive holiday spending, and pro football games.
So if even for an extra moment today, take some time to give thanks…not just a recited prayer for the food, but an actual counting of those things for which you are thankful. I think when you actually quantify that into a list, you’ll find no matter what your situation or that of the troubled world, we each have so much for which to truly be thankful.
