Thursday, November 26, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi, all!

Hope all is well!
Wanted to wish all my fellow Americans a
Happy Thanksgiving!

We are going to a neighbor's house for a "hood" brunch and then I'll be spending Thanksgiving with my side of the family.

So much to be thankful for this year. I have a lot of things happening next year as well and if you are a newsletter subscriber, you already know. Ha!
So feel free to subscribe. There are free monthly giveaways just for being a subscriber!

And in case you wondered, here is a little bit about the origin of Thanksgiving (courtesy of the History channel):

The tradition of celebrating the holiday on Thursday dates back to the early history of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies. A famous Thanksgiving observance occurred in the autumn of 1621, when Plymouth governor William Bradford invited local Indians to join the Pilgrims in a three-day festival held in gratitude for the bounty of the season.

Thanksgiving became an annual custom throughout New England in the 17th century, and in 1777 the Continental Congress declared the first national American Thanksgiving following the Patriot victory at Saratoga. In 1789, President George Washington became the first president to proclaim a Thanksgiving holiday, when, at the request of Congress, he proclaimed November 26, a Tuesday, as a day of national thanksgiving for the U.S. Constitution. However, it was not until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving to fall on the last Thursday of November, that the modern holiday was celebrated nationally.

With a few deviations, Lincoln’s precedent was followed annually by every subsequent president–until 1939. In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt departed from tradition by declaring November 23, the next to last Thursday that year, as Thanksgiving Day. (He was just trying to boost the economy)Considerable controversy surrounded this deviation, and some Americans refused to honor Roosevelt’s declaration.

For the next two years, Roosevelt repeated the unpopular proclamation, but on November 26, 1941, he admitted his mistake (it was a real turkey) and signed a bill into law officially making the fourth Thursday in November the national holiday of Thanksgiving Day.



"Give thanks not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day of your life. Appreciate and never take for granted all that you have." Catherine Pulsifer


4 comments:

H. R. Sinclair said...

Happy Thanksgiving! A 'hood' brunch sound like fun. What a nice idea.

Author R. Mac Wheeler said...

Happy Thanksgiving bachachoo

Maria Zannini said...

I learned something new today. I didn't know FDR messed with the date.

dolorah said...

Some traditions are so old we forget their origins. Happy Thanksgiving Jennifer.