I am researching things about the first Thanksgiving to see what I can add to our celebration to make it educational too. I found this on Wikipedia so far and have more to find.
In the United States
Main article: Thanksgiving (United States)
In the United States, the modern Thanksgiving holiday tradition is commonly traced to a 1621 celebration at Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts. The 1621 Plymouth feast and thanksgiving was prompted by a good harvest. In later years, the tradition was continued by civil leaders such as Governor Bradford who planned a thanksgiving celebration and fast in 1623.[9][10][11] The practice of holding an annual harvest festival like this did not become a regular affair in New England until the late 1660s.[12]
Pilgrims and Puritans who began emigrating from England in the 1620s and 1630s carried the tradition of Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving with them to New England. Several days of Thanksgiving were held in early New England history that have been identified as the "First Thanksgiving", including Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth in 1621 and 1623, and a Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631.[13][14]
Thanksgiving proclamations were made mostly by church leaders in New England up until 1682, and then by both state and church leaders until after the American Revolution. During the revolutionary period, political influences affected the issuance of Thanksgiving proclamations. Various proclamations were made by royal governors, John Hancock, General George Washington, and the Continental Congress, each giving thanks to God for events favorable to their causes.[15] As President of the United States, George Washington proclaimed the first nation-wide thanksgiving celebration in America marking November 26, 1789, "as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God".[16]
According to historian Jeremy Bangs, director of the Leiden American Pilgrim Museum, the Pilgrims may have been influenced by watching the annual services of Thanksgiving for the relief of the siege of Leiden in 1574, while they were staying in Leiden.[17]
Every year, the President of the United States will “pardon” a turkey, which spares the bird's life and ensures that it will spend the duration of its life roaming freely on farmland.[18]
Debate about first celebrations
The traditional representation of where the first Thanksgiving was held in the United States, and even the Americas, has often been a subject of debate, though the debate is often confused by mixing up the ideas of a Thanksgiving holiday celebration and a Thanksgiving religious service. This debate has been called a "tempest in a beanpot" and "marvelous nonsense."[13] There is evidence for an earlier religious service by Spanish explorers in Texas at San Elizario in 1598, as well as thanksgiving feasts in the Virginia Colony.[19] The initial thanksgiving observance at Virginia in 1619 was prompted by the colonists' leaders on the anniversary of the settlement.[20] Author and teacher Robyn Gioia and Michael Gannon of the University of Florida have argued that the earliest attested "Thanksgiving" service in what is now the United States was celebrated by the Spanish on September 8, 1565, in what is now Saint Augustine, Florida.[21][22]
Thanksgiving services were routine in Virginia as early as 1607.[23] A day for Thanksgiving services was codified in the founding charter of Berkeley Hundred in Charles City County, Virginia in 1619.[24]
Since Rob is still in TX for the next 2 weeks I am going to start doing special crafts to use for decorations for our feast. I will be perusing PINTEREST for great ideas too. We will definitely have hand turkeys, and our own place mats. I want to do formal place settings just to make it special. I would love to find special table ware too. It may just be fancy paper plates, but it will be SPECIAL!! I know the most special thing will be being together as a family again! We have missed Rob like CRAZY! We cannot wait to wrap out arms around him and kiss his face!
The thing I love MOST is reflecting on everything God has done in the last year for our family. As I look back I see all of the blessings God has given us. I am thankful every day of my life but there is something about the month of November that brings it all to a head. Every day life tends to wear us down and we sometimes forget to be thankful, Thanksgiving usually reminds people to be THANKFUL and remember that things aren't as bad as it seems. Over the years it seems as though Thanksgiving has been lost to Halloween, and Christmas. It is time that we put an emphasis back on THANKSGIVING and to what it means to be thankful. God has been merciful to each and everyone of us. No matter what you have been through I am sure you can find at least one thing to be thankful for! Food, shelter, job? I challenge each of my friends to find something to be thankful for during this month of thankfulness!
