Many Americans think of Thanksgiving as a long weekend to gather with family and friends and savor a big feast with turkey, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes and cranberries and more.
After the first harvest in the New World in October 1621, the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims. A celebration of autumn harvest. Both the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared the joy of blessings from above.
The colonists hunted for turkeys in the 1621 and turkey is a uniquely American bird and by tradition it became a must choice as Thanksgiving meal for Americans.
The Thanksgiving holiday was used to teach children about American freedom and how to be good citizens.
May we go back to basics and listen to Governor William Bradford of the 1620 Pilgrim Colony who proclaimed :
"All ye Pilgrims with your wives and little ones, do gather at the Meeting House,
on the hill… there to listen to the pastor, and render Thanksgiving to
the Almighty God for all His blessings."
And keep listening to President Abraham Lincoln who proclaimed, by Act of Congress, on October 3, 1863, an annual National Day of Thanksgiving "a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens." In this Thanksgiving proclamation, our 16th President says that it is…
Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate best cooking from Mama or Grand-mama or best restaurant in town."…announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…"
THEREFORE - let us teach our children and young and renew in the homes, churches, schools, communities and the nation the true meaning of Thanksgiving Day. To acknowledge God Almighty as our provider and who multiplies the work of our hands and blesses us everyday.
The future is coming - let us look back to the past foundations of this great nation and country.
