Thanksgiving, the Disappearing Holiday

Thanksgiving has become a lost holiday. These days the holiday that was created in order to remind us to count all of our blessings, gets lost somewhere between searching for the perfect Halloween costume and the frantic Christmas shopping that has to be completed in only a few weeks, in order to prove our love for our friends and families. Though it tends to be under rated and often over looked, Thanksgiving remains one of our most special holidays.

Thanksgiving was a day that was set aside back in 1621 by the Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. The day was proclaimed a day of thanks to God and a time of prayer after a brutal number of years when the many Pilgrims who had originally come to the New World had almost perished after the cold and famine. Through sheer determination, good luck and help from some of the local Native Americans some of the settlers survived.

The first Thanksgiving was not a time when Grandma set out her best linens and everyone used their best manners. Governor Bradford invited Grande Sachem Massasoit and the Wampanoag to a celebratory feast where they ate such delicacies as, wild turkey, pheasant, goose, duck, venison, cod, eel, clams, oysters, dried Indian corn, roasted pumpkin, nuts and possibly grapes and plums. The Pilgrims ate on wooden trenchers and used spoons, knives and their fingers as eating utensils.

Through the years there has been many designated days to honor Thanksgiving. Originally Thanksgiving was declared as a national holiday in 1789 by President George Washington. President Washington wrote, " Now therefore do I recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the Benefactor and Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be -".

President Abraham Lincoln also declared Thanksgiving a Federal holiday and set Thanksgiving to be on the last Thursday of November. Later on in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set our official day of Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November and in 1941 Congress approved the date.

Traditionally Thanksgiving has become a day for families to gather for some home cooking, watching football games, watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade and stuffing ourselves as well as our turkeys. In our busy lives with so many families moving around the country, we have adjusted our Thanksgiving celebration to fit our individual lives with many restaurants now serving traditional Thanksgiving Dinners. More and more people are choosing to share Thanksgiving meals with friends and colleagues instead of family members who might live too far away.

There are many public gatherings in which Thanksgiving meals are served to anyone who alone, not able to afford a special meal or just wants to share the day with others. Most of these meals are free and require that you just show up hungry. If you don't have someone to share the day with check your local newspaper for a list of places where they are serving free Thanksgiving meals to the public. Go with an open mind and and open heart and you may just find another reason to be Thankful on this special day. You may just realize that there are more people out there then you knew about who actually care. Happy Thanksgiving.

Sources used in this article are as follows: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/thanksgivinghttp://www.history.com/minisites/thanksgiving/