Brian B- you started this and you better help me lead the way! Let me back up and start with Thanksgiving... the holiday that is lost between Halloween and Christmas. The holiday that becomes stressful for us to sit through with our families and cook and clean for extended family members we do not spend that much time with (sometimes). The holiday that has lost all meaning and is about the day after.. BLACK FRIDAY where holiday season kicks in and Christmas decorations go up... except I noticed this year black Friday ad's were released 2 weeks prior instead of the day or few days before the crazy shopping trip day.. and stores were advertising layaway plans and shopping deals at the end of October. I guess the economy wants a boost with 60 plus days to cram commercials and paper flyer's down our throats and take cash we do not have out of our pockets....
So Brian tonights post is for you-
via Wikipedia, Thanksgiving is defined as:
Thanksgiving Day is a harvest festival celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving was a holiday to express thankfulness, gratitude, and appreciation to God, family and friends for which all have been blessed of material possessions and relationships. Traditionally, it has been a time to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. This holiday has since moved away from its religious roots.[1]
Interesting huh? I then went to history.com and read a bit more... and instead of re posting it all.. I encourage you to visit their site, and many others and read, watch videos with your children, your family and friends... like it on facebook and post it to your wall.. educate others :) Find something interesting to share on the comment section below- and let me add one more thing.. WHY do we celebrate "thanks" on JUST ONE DAY?
With that I will leave you with the basic short history lesson from history.com's site... and look forward to the followers this creates, the education that may happen, and for the eye opening that this creates for me.... so I can teach my children the true meaning!
In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
I find this the most interesting piece of history I have learned in a LONG time.. from history.com
ReplyDelete"In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. In 1827, the noted magazine editor and prolific writer Sarah Josepha Hale—author, among countless other things, of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians. Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to “commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife” and to “heal the wounds of the nation.” He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November"
the great thing about the holidays is that people interpret them differently. i try not to think of thanksgiving the way the history books taught us all because lets face it if people were all about giving back then the Indian nation would not have slaughtered. as Americans we grow up with these traditions that we love or hate.i personally love the holidays.i love seeing my family and friends all together.i have always been the kind of person who needs that sort of environment to feel whole.to me that is what the holidays are about feeling complete and getting high on life.now that i have my own beautiful family it makes it that much more special and i want to teach my daughter that family and good friends are very important in life.i also want to teach her that thinking of other people should not be something you do occasionally,it should be done daily.
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