Thanksgiving...a little history, a lot of fun!

Why is this Thanksgiving so special?

Thanksgiving is one of the major holidays celebrated in the United States.  It is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November.  The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians in 1621.  It was a feast to commemorate the Pilgrim's first harvest.  The Wampanoags introduced the Pilgrims to agricultural techniques and foods unfamiliar to Europeans. 

That first Thanksgiving  was a day of prayer.  It was a day set aside to thank God for providing the Pilgrims with a new, bountiful land, where they could worship as they wished.   The feasting lasted for three days. According to Edward Winslow(an attedee) the party consisted of 90 Wampanoag Indians and 53 Pilgrims.

Thanksgiving did not become a Federal holiday until 1863(during the Civil War).  On October of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficient Father who dwelleth in the Heavens".  

In modern times Thanksgiving marks the start of  the holiday season, which includes Christmas and ends on New Year's Day.  The Friday after Thanksgiving is known as "Black Friday."  This is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.  Many store open at midnight, have mega-sales and stay open for 24 hours to accommodate the many bargain shoppers.  

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day in the United States(United States Department of Transportation).   Families reunite, college students come home, it is a joyful holiday dedicated to gratitude.

But Why is this Thanksgiving Extra Special?  

 Thanksgivukkah

On Thursday, November 28, 2013 we will have an event that hasn't happened in 125 years: Thanksgivukkah!  An event that will not return until  ??   Yes, we don't know when.  While doing the research for this essay, the author could not find a consensus on  when the next Thanksgivukkah will occur.  Rather than inseminate false information, this writer has chosen to wait...for possibly 70,000+ years!  Some highly respected scholars feel that this event will never happen again, others say it will come back in approximately 70,000 years; let's make the most of this one.

These gentlemen tell the story in their own musical way:

 Thanksgiving Classic:

When our kids were younger, we would play Alice's Restaurant to them on Thanksgiving;  they did not share our enthusiasm for this musical classic.  Here it is.

The Gettysburg Address

The Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.