Gobble….Gobble

The holiday of Thanksgiving is one of my favorites.  Not just for the food, though that does play a large part in it; or the crisp nip in the air this time of year brings.  No for me it’s the gathering of family and friends; the sharing of fond memories and the catching up on new ones.  Of all the holidays we celebrate Thanksgiving is by far the most family oriented.

Most of you know the story of how this holiday began.  In 1621 Pilgrims and Indians came together at a place known today as Plymouth Massachusetts.    They gathered to share and celebrate their bountiful harvest with each other and to give thanks for what they had.  I’m sure it didn’t quite happen that exact way but it is a nice story and did start a wonderful tradition we still celebrate today.

According to Wikipedia…”The dates of Thanksgiving in the era of the Founding Fathers until the time of Lincoln had been decided by each state on various dates. The first Thanksgiving celebrated on the same date by all states was in 1863 by presidential proclamation. The final Thursday in November had become the customary date of Thanksgiving in most U.S. states by the beginning of the 19th century. And so, in an effort by President Abraham Lincoln (influenced by the campaigning of author Sarah Josepha Hale who wrote letters to politicians for around 40 years trying to make it an official holiday), to foster a sense of American unity between the Northern and Southern states, proclaimed the date to be the final Thursday in November.”

With all that’s going on in America and the world today a lot of people are finding it difficult to find anything to be thankful for. But anyone who can draw a breath of air in their lungs has something to be thankful for if they only were to look hard enough.  If you still come up short you can always be thankful that you live in this great country of ours; a country that allows us to voice our support or displeasure with our government and its representatives without fear of reprisal.  Or you can just say a prayer for those less fortunate than you and to all our armed forces where ever they are in the world.

To all of you, our readers and friends, we at A Hollywood Republican would like to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Economy, Free Speech, macy's, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day Parade, Turkey, Unemployment

This entry was posted on November 24, 2011 at 9:45 am and is filed under Ira Schwartz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.