Thanksgiving
There's always something
unique about each national holiday that we celebrate and the November
eat-a-thon we lovingly call Thanksgiving is no different. A horrible day if you're literally a bloated
turkey, Thanksgiving is a holiday that's truly about family. Opposed to other holidays like New Year's
Eve and Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving is a day that you want to hang out with
your immediate family rather than your friends or significant other. That's because Thanksgiving revolves around the
magnificent Thanksgiving dinner feast that generally involves one terrific
tasting turkey, some succulent sweet gravy, and a pretty great pie, preferably
of the pumpkin variety!
A holiday that's enjoyable for the kids and the grandparents, Thanksgiving is a
time where new recipes are tested out, games are played, and a bit of American
history is reviewed. The story of this
holiday that takes place on the fourth Thursday in November takes place some
time ago: specifically the 17th century.
Picture this. The year is 1621: Homely Alessandro Ludovisio
suddenly transforms into Gregory XV, your new pope; Gustavus Adolphus decides
hey why don't I create this new city in Sweden, I'll call it Gothenburg; Spain
was mourning the death of the tough but fair King Philip III; and a slice of
Americana was to be born.
The previous year, a group of plucky nomads that had the same type of plucky
spirit as the 2004 Boston Red Sox, which we now know as the Pilgrims did
something crazy. They traveled from the
comfortable confines of Europe to come to the savage wasteland that was
pre-Jeffersonian democratic America on their ship, the Mayflower, and they
actually survived. In fact, they
actually prospered a little bit and this was made clear by their sweet,
bountiful, and plentiful fall harvest.
With an abundance of corn, fruits, vegetables, fish packed in salt, and
meats were smoke cured over fires, the Pilgrims found that they had enough food
to make it through the winter. As
winter in 1621 was not a good time to grow food, the Pilgrims found that they
had managed to avoid their main fear: starving during the winter.
In a festive mood, William
Bradford (then Governor of the Pilgrims) decided to proclaim a day of
thanksgiving in which a gigantic feast would be made and shared by all the colonists
and their Native American Indians neighbors.
From this momentous occasion was born the tremendous holiday that is
Thanksgiving.
Of course, the history of Thanksgiving doesn't just stop there. Rather, it would take centuries before this
holiday became recognized as an annual event.
Many people assume that the Pilgrims made this Thanksgiving feast an
annual event, but alas, during their lifetime this dinner would be a one-time occasion
much like Edenfest is for our generation.
Presidents like George Washington celebrated one-time Thanksgiving
events but it wasn't until Abraham Lincoln made the second of his famed
proclamations, the 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation that officially gave
Thanksgiving the national holiday status that it deserved.
Over the years, Thanksgiving
has had some minor tweaks but its spirit remains the same. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
(FDR to the public, Frankie to his friends) changed the day of Thanksgiving
from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday of November. Through it all, Thanksgiving remains an
excellent holiday where children take the day off school to eat and play games
while adults get to also eat and enjoy the two NFL games that are played each
year to celebrate this day.
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