When families across the nation gather this Thanksgiving, busily basting their turkeys in preparation for the annual feast, it is doubtful that their thoughts are thinking of the historic first celebration in 1621.
As millions of Americans wait at crowded terminals preparing for their long trips to celebrate Thanksgiving with their loved ones, few are probably thinking of their ancestors who traveled over the ocean to a new land.
Few cooks, busy in their kitchens, hoping that they purchased a large enough turkey, are probably feeling sorry for the Pilgrims who suffered hunger, illness and death before that first feast.
Nor are hosts, who are wondering where to sit Aunt Polly at the dining room table, wondering about the awkward seating of Indians next to immigrants.
Way back in the days of the English King, Henry VIII, days were set aside to offer up thankfulness in religious services. So, our American Thanksgiving celebration is important.
America is also not alone in setting aside a day to be thankful. Canada, Germany, Brazil, Grenada and the Philippines are a few countries that also honor gratitude.
In America, Thanksgiving is celebrated by offering gratitude for our blessings, feasting and gathering with family.
It is also about arguing on who will get the wishbone and questioning if you should or should not put coconut in the ambrosia, and which is better, inside or outside stuffing?
It is about festive parades that usher in the Christmas season with the arrival of jolly old Saint Nick in his sleigh and frantic Christmas shopping. And let us not forget that Thanksgiving for many also means football.
Our first American Thanksgiving began as a celebration of gratitude for the blessing of the harvest and for surviving the past year. We have come a long way from that first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and Wampanoags tribe.
It was on Nov. 26, 1789 that President George Washington proclaimed Thanksgiving to be “a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed, by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and significant favors of Almighty God.”
He also called for America to “unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations, and to beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions.”
Washington was then unaware that in the future, other universal prayers would be to pray that the turkey would not come out dry and that the favored football team would not only win the game but that would also be within the point spread.
Nor could Washington know then that retailers would set aside the day after Thanksgiving for the needed revenue brought in, and it would ever after be the day known as Black Friday.
Why Black? Because for so many businesses who have had their books in the red, this day begins their happy ride to being back in the black. Hallelujah!
Diana Ingram can be reached at DingramThurston21@gmail.com
