This week I thought that
I would discover more about Thanksgiving Day as it is held on Thursday November
26th in United States and Canada and share it with you. It is a national
holiday and celebrates the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans
generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modelled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the
English colonists (Pilgrims)
of Plymouth
and the Wampanoag people.
This holiday is particularly
rich in legend
and symbolism, and the traditional fare of the Thanksgiving meal typically
includes turkey, bread
stuffing, potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie.
A writer called Bradford wrote about how the colonists had hunted
wild turkeys during the autumn of 1621 and since turkey is a uniquely American
bird, it gained place as the Thanksgiving meal of choice for Americans after
Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863.
Cranberries are important on Thanksgiving Day because according to University of Maine Cooperative Extension, American Indians used cranberries as a food source, to dye fabric and as medicine. … Due to the importance of cranberries in the 1500s and their abundance, it is believed that the pilgrims and the American Indians would have eaten them at the first Thanksgiving.
The pumpkin is a symbol of harvest time, and pumpkin pie is
generally eaten during the fall and early winter. In the United States and
Canada, it is usually prepared for Thanksgiving, and other occasions when
pumpkin is in season.
Thanksgiving is important because it’s a positive and secular
holiday where we celebrate gratitude, something of which we don’t do enough of
these days.
In the letter of St.Paul to the Philippians[4:6-7] we read: “Do not
be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus.”
One of the best things about thankfulness is that the
more you choose it, the easier it gets. The more you profess gratitude, the
more you notice things to be grateful for, the thankfulness muscles respond to
exercise!
There are many references to thankfulness in the Old
Testament. Listed below are some of the references and I invite you to look
them up for yourselves.
Ezra 3:11. Psalm 7:17. Psalm 9:1.
Psalm 35:18. Psalm 69:30. Psalm 95:1-3. Psalm 100:4-5. Psalm 106:1
Please include this Prayer of Gratitude written by
John F.Kennedy in your prayers this week: “Let us therefore proclaim our
gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings—let us be humbly thankful for
inherited ideals—and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals
with our fellow human beings throughout the world. On that (this) day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to
worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for
the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will
continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving
peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending
misery and suffering wherever they exist.”
I conclude with two bits of humour: When I think of
“Thanksgiving Day,” I am reminded of the story of the little boy who saw
his mother putting a thermometer in the turkey. He said, “If it is that sick, I
don’t want any!”
The small resident population in a nursing home had
been gathered around their humble Thanksgiving table, and the director asked
each in turn to express one thing for which he or she was thankful. Thanks were
expressed for a home in which to stay, families, etc. One little old lady, when
her turn came, said, “I thank the Lord for two perfectly good teeth left in my
mouth, one in my upper jaw and one in my lower jaw. They match so well that I
can chew my food.”
