Thanksgiving

So in honor of the up coming holiday, I decided to write a blog about it. Now, as we all know, Thanksgiving, in America, was started by the Pilgrims in Plymouth MA after they were able to survive a harsh winter thanks to some of the Native Americans of the Wampanoag tribe. Now this is actually a contested part of history, some say the Spanish did it first in Florida and others claim that the settler in Virginia did it first, but for the sake of argument, lets say that the Thanksgiving we were taught in school is the origins. Anyway, it became an official holiday for every American under the presidency of Abraham Lincoln. He set it as the last Thursday in November in 1863 to promote unity for all of the Unites States, especially between the North and South, though states still had a say on whether they would or not, it was just the government would take that Thursday as a holiday. This lasted until December 26th, 1941 when the legislature decided to make it the fourth Thursday in November. Why they changed it, not to sure, but since the United States had just had Peal Harbor I feel that they were probably trying to promote moral by making it the same in all the states, since states still had the power to change the Lincoln date if they so chose.

Now, Thanksgiving is universally celebrated by all the states and by most Americans on that Thursday. The basics of the holiday are simple. You congregate with family or friends and everyone brings something to share and you stuff your face until you can no longer move without groaning. In my family, the children, who are all in their teens or early twenties, play games, such as cranium and Mafia, while the mothers and grandmothers have an intensive Black Friday war meeting in the dinning room, clipping coupons and deciding which stores they will camp out at. The fathers and grandfathers all just laze about, talking about hunting, computers and sports. Christmas music is usually playing in the background since in my family, the Christmas music does not come out until the Thanksgiving meal is over. Its all good fun and I hope that everyone can find somewhere that they feel invited and warm. After all, that is what Thanksgiving is really about, finding those people that feel like family and celebrating another successful year, even if it wasn't. You're alive, they're alive and that's all that counts, even if your dinner consists of diddly -squat. Just give thanks that you saw one more years, and that you have made it to the time of year where people tend to be a little bit nicer, except if you get in the way of their Christmas shopping, then you are on your own.

Just wanted to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving and just let it be a blessing.