netTrekker Blog

Thanksgiving

All over Facebook, my friends are posting a daily post of what they are thankful for.Today, my son’s school held their annual Student/Parent Thanksgiving Luncheon. My teacher friends are busy updating lesson plans for this holiday. Turkeys and baking goods are popping up all throughout the grocery stores. These posts and events, are inspired by the upcoming national/federal holiday of Thanksgiving.

How many of you know the history of Thanksgiving? The first Thanksgiving was declared by George Washington in 1789. It was declared in September before the recess, and celebrated on November 26, 2009 as a day of “publick thanksgivin’”. Each President after George Washington continued to declare a date for the nation to give thanks, with the date always varied. President Lincoln however needed order to the date, so he established that the day of thanksgiving will be the last Thursday of each November. President Franklin D. Roosevelt however looked at the “economic” calendar and realized that the last Thursday of November cut the shopping time for the Christmas holidays, and therefore he moved it to the second to last Thursday November. But not everyone agreed with this, and so not all states celebrated on the same date, which just caused confusion. So Congress got together in 1941 and after many considerations, set the day of thanksgiving as the fourth Friday of November.

Wait a second? You thought the first day of thanks was celebrated with the Indians and Pilgrims? Actually, that would be correct as well. In 1620, the Pilgrims landed and tried to build a life for themselves in a deserted Indian Village. If the Indians didn’t come back in 1621 and witnessed the poor shape the Pilgrims were in and offered them help in learning how to farm and be sufficient, there’s no telling where the Pilgrims would end up. So later that year, the Pilgrims and the Indians sat down to a three day feast to celebrate their friendship. It’s a shame that the relationship with the Indians did not last as long as it could have.

But the day of thanks and friendship also are marked back to early Greece, other parts of history, and throughout religion. The more and more I read the different websites in netTrekker, the more I found about this day that we get to celebrate thanks. It’s more than turkey, football, and getting up early the next morning to shop the big sales. If you conduct a search in netTrekker you too can find the entire scoop.

Share your favorite way of celebrating Thanksgiving on netTrekker Village.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

No comments yet.

Leave a comment