What Thanksgiving Means To Me
WHAT THANKSGIVING MEANS TO ME
In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday, of November. However, seven nations also observe Thanksgiving as an official holiday. Those nations are Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea, Liberia, and Switzerland. The first Thanksgiving is on record as being celebrated in the year 1621 near Plymouth, Massachusetts, with a feast following the Pilgrims first harvest. However, the feast was never repeated. In fact, the devoutly religious Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving thereafter, not with feasting, but with praying and fasting. Today Thanksgiving has too many, not only a time to give thanks, but to celebrate with food, family, football, shopping and parades.
I love the Thanksgiving holiday. In my family, it considered a time for friends and relatives to come together for food, laughter, and conversation. My favorite tradition is when the women of the family, young and old, come together in the kitchen to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. There is such a feeling of warmth and love, that, I think sets the tone for the whole day. The men are usually gathered around the largest television or running errands back and forth to the grocery store. Children are running back and forth playing, filling the house with laughter. Soon dinner is done and all activity ceases as the eldest member of the family begins to pray for the family, and give thanks, as we all stand in agreement. As the prayer closes, voices lift in loud amen and comments about the abundance of food begin.
Thanksgiving with all its traditions and the many ways it is celebrated, it all comes to a couple of key points. Those points are family, biological, or otherwise and being thankfulness for all that, we are blessed with. Sure, the parades and the shopping are all fun. If we did not have our family to share it with, it would not hold the same joy for us. There is a quote I once read that states, “Thanksgiving comes, by statute,
In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday, of November. However, seven nations also observe Thanksgiving as an official holiday. Those nations are Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea, Liberia, and Switzerland. The first Thanksgiving is on record as being celebrated in the year 1621 near Plymouth, Massachusetts, with a feast following the Pilgrims first harvest. However, the feast was never repeated. In fact, the devoutly religious Pilgrims celebrated Thanksgiving thereafter, not with feasting, but with praying and fasting. Today Thanksgiving has too many, not only a time to give thanks, but to celebrate with food, family, football, shopping and parades.
I love the Thanksgiving holiday. In my family, it considered a time for friends and relatives to come together for food, laughter, and conversation. My favorite tradition is when the women of the family, young and old, come together in the kitchen to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. There is such a feeling of warmth and love, that, I think sets the tone for the whole day. The men are usually gathered around the largest television or running errands back and forth to the grocery store. Children are running back and forth playing, filling the house with laughter. Soon dinner is done and all activity ceases as the eldest member of the family begins to pray for the family, and give thanks, as we all stand in agreement. As the prayer closes, voices lift in loud amen and comments about the abundance of food begin.
Thanksgiving with all its traditions and the many ways it is celebrated, it all comes to a couple of key points. Those points are family, biological, or otherwise and being thankfulness for all that, we are blessed with. Sure, the parades and the shopping are all fun. If we did not have our family to share it with, it would not hold the same joy for us. There is a quote I once read that states, “Thanksgiving comes, by statute,