Soon the fall season will be over, but first let us take a few minutes to celebrate our Thanksgiving Blessings! For me, it seems like less and less time is taken for us to give thanks for what we have in this place we refer to as life.
How My Family Celebrated Thanksgiving
As I look back to my younger years growing up, Thanksgiving was a day for family gatherings. We lived close together then so it made it easier to travel to grandma’s house. Sometimes it meant we had to have the Thanksgiving dinner on a day that wasn’t the traditional “Thanksgiving Day”. We tried to be together at some point with the family.
Everyone would bring a dish of their choosing (or two), and my mom would do the rest. She always made the cornbread dressing! We may not have had a turkey for every Thanksgiving, but she would bake a large chicken hen instead; hens usually have more fat to cook out than a rooster. My mom would also boil a hen and make dumplings from scratch. Chicken and Dumplings was one of my niece’s favorite dishes so she always made it for her. The house always smelled s-o-o-o good.
We would get up and watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in the morning and mom would start cooking bright and early. When everyone arrived, all of the kids would go outside to play (it was always warm because we lived in Texas). Once lunch was ready, about 1:00, we would go in an eat. Sometimes there was room to sit inside but, sometimes all of us kids would go outside to eat. We never stayed inside back then unless it was raining and cold.
After lunch, the adults would watch football games; at least the men would and the ladies would always clean up. There wasn’t any shopping done on Thanksgiving Day like there is today. Back then a holiday was a holiday for everyone. Not even grocery stores opened so you better have bought what you needed for Thanksgiving Day meal the day before, or you would do without what you didn’t get. It was really nice because most family’s would be together. It was just that, a day of Thanksgiving Blessings and being together.
After I grew up and had my children, I basically raised my children the same way I was and tried to instill the same values. Of course that includes how we celebrated holidays. Since we lived away from our familes and was overseas for five years, we had a different type of family then.
Instead of blood relatives, our family became friends we had made or co-workers. Therefore, we had pot lunch dinners, invited single soldiers to our houses for a home-cooked meal. This allowed for a great variety of different dishes and from different ethnic backgrounds. It was always great. We would still watch football games or watch Christmas movies after eating. We also played good ole fashioned board games. If weather permitted the kids still played outside. We didn’t have Play Stations or cell phones so the kids actually still got outside.
Things began to change and stores began to open on Thanksgiving. Black Friday’s came about and families all began to change priorities. But, I sure wish it would go back so people actually talked in person. Those were the ‘good old days’! Today families live apart sometimes out of necessity, so people have to travel a long way. It is hard for them to get together for holidays as much. But, that is the way it is today, so we have to make do with time we can get together.
How did Thanksgiving Come About?
Thanksgiving today is celebrated by the United States and Canada. It was modeled after the 1621 harvest feast shared by English colonist known as the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people. The meal symbolized the sealing of a Treaty between the two groups of people until the King Philip’s War (1675-1676). In this war hundreds of colonists and thousand’s of nataive americans lost their lives.
New England regularly celebrated Thanksgiving with days of prayer, thanking God for blessings such as military victories or the ends of a drought period. The US Continiental Congress proclaimed a national Thanksgiving upon the re-enactment of the Constitution for example. After 1798, the new US Congress left Thanksgiving Declaration to the states since some southern states had objected to the national governments involvement in a religious observances.
In the mid 19th century, Sarah Josephe Hale campaigned for a national Thanksgiving holiday to promote unity. She won the support of President Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863 during the Civil War. He proclaimed the National Day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated on Thursday, November 26. Later, it was decided to celebrate Thanksgiving should be celebrated the last Thursday in November.
To try and boost the economy President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving Day back a week to the third Thursday of Novemeber in 1942. This also allowed famiy’s that lived further apart time to come together and celebrate. This separated the religious roots from Thanksgiving to allow all immigrants of all backgrounds to participate in this as a common tradition.
As early as the 1800’s parades with costumes became common. In 1920, Gimble’s Deapartment Store staged a parade of about 50 people with Santa bringing up the end of parade. Since 1924, the parade has continued as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade starting off the holiday in New York City. It has continued the tradition and has added the huge balloons since 1927. Read more about this here: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thanksgiving-Day
Happy Thanksgiving To Each of You
Today, as we still celebrate with the parade, a feast of wonderful foods, football games, may family togetherness be at the forefront. This year, let take a moment to put back the prayers of Thanksgiving in our celebration. Let’s not forget those who came before us and founded our country to allow us to have these freedom’s to celebrate as we choose.
I wish you all the best and happiest of Thanksgiving’s to you and your families. Have a safe and awesome time! May God Bless You All!
