Tag Archives: thanksgiving

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The Broadside | Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the fourth Thanksgiving post I’ve written since starting this blog in 2020 (there is a fifth if I include a day-before post in 2021). I reread them before posting this one (2020, 2021, (2021-2), 2022, 2023) and note that all of them encourage us to focus on the central purpose of the day, which is to give thanks for God’s abundant blessings in our lives.

As always, it’s easy to default to simply enjoying time off while eating a huge meal and watching a football game, whereas it takes some work to be thankful. Thanksgiving Day was set aside as a remembrance of the first Thanksgiving in 1621—now more than 400 years ago—when those 53 courageous men and women gave thanks to God for their first successful harvest in a new land with their native friends.

Take time as you gather around a table to express your gratitude to the Giver of all good things. Below I re-link you to a few resources that I’ve offered before.

By remembering, we cultivate an attitude of gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving!

History of Massachusetts: History of the First Thanksgiving
The True Story of That First Thanksgiving
George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789
Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863

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Daily Broadside | Thanksgiving Edition

Quick! What’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of Thanksgiving? (Don’t scroll until you have your word.)

What word(s) did you come up with?

Turkey?

Football?

Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade?

A day off?

Fall leaves?

Black Friday?

If you chose one of these words, congratulations. You have been successfully innoculated against the original spirit of the day along with millions of your compatriots—including me.

But we can recapture it’s meaning if we make it a point to tell the story to our family and guests who gather with us on this day.

The first Thanksgiving was at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, so named for the port in England from which the Pilgrims set sail on September 6, 1620, for a 65-day journey across the Atlantic. Less than 50 of the roughly 100 passengers and crew on the Mayflower survived the winter of 1620.

Sometime in October or November of 1621, the Pilgrims gathered in the great English tradition of a 3-day harvest festival that featured venison, turkey and waterfowl, cod, and bass, plus wheat, corn, and barley, and probably a number of vegtables and fruit. It was there that they celebrated a bountiful harvest and gave thanks to God for his gracious provision.

What does that have to do with us today?

For those of us who still love these United States and its ideals, Thanksgiving represents an opportunity to express a grateful heart that has not taken prosperity for granted. We stand on the shoulders of men and women who braved the unknown and persevered through trials that we can only hope we never face. Because of their courage and perseverance, we are blessed beyond measure to live in a country where we are (mostly) free from want and, in fact, have more than we really need.

As you gather with friends or family today, perhaps take a minute or two to read one of the only two accounts of that first harvest festival. Have your guests each name one thing that they are thankful for. Then take a moment to sincerely acknowledge God’s provision in your life, and thank Him for His blessings.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Whatever you choose to do, I wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!

History of Massachusetts: History of the First Thanksgiving
The True Story of That First Thanksgiving

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Daily Broadside | The Obvious Big Missing Object of Thanksgiving Today

Daily Verse | 1 Corinthians 8:9
Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.

Thursday’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 9-11

Thanksgiving has deep roots in the history of the United States. We all know the story of the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag people sharing an autumn harvest feast in 1621 that is known as the first Thanksgiving. Michael Hollan shares a brief history of Thanksgiving becoming a formal holiday.

Before it became an official holiday, President George Washington issued a proclamation that Thursday, November 26, 1789, would be a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer,” according to the Unites States Office of the Historian. It wasn’t until 1863, however, that President Abraham Lincoln said that Americans should recognize the last Thursday of every November as a day of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving became an official national holiday in 1870, along with Christmas, New Year’s Day and Independence Day, the government website states. At that time, it was decided that the president would decide the date of Thanksgiving. Most followed Lincoln’s lead and chose the last Thursday of November, according to the Office of the Historian.

This continued until President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved it to the third Thursday of November, according to the Office of the Historian. At the time, the country was still reeling from the Great Depression, and Roosevelt hoped to help businesses by extending the holiday season.

The move was controversial, however, and the House passed a bill in October of 1941 that made the last Thursday of November the official date for Thanksgiving. 

Some 80 years later, we continue to celebrate Thanksgiving as one of our major national observances and as a lead-in to “the holiday season.” But the spirit of the day in our current era is a far cry from what the original intent of the celebration was.

In many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends.

No kidding. Here’s how George Washington described the day:

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be– That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks–for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation–for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war–for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed–for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

Here’s how Abraham Lincoln described the day:

No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged,

In our secular world, the idea of thanksgiving has been boiled down to having a huge meal with family or friends and watching a football game while we enjoy a day off of work. If we’re trying to inject something meaningful into our observance, we might share what we’re thankful for: family, friends, financial security, good weather, safe travels, the new job, baby, house or car.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with those things, but we seem to be missing the implied object of our thanks. The word is thanks-GIVING. To whom are we giving thanks?

The Pilgrims, Washington and Lincoln all had it right. Our thanks is to be directed to God, “that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be,” and “to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.”

1 Chronicles 29:14

Today, as you observe Thanksgiving, remember that all that we have comes from the hand of the Lord. Celebrate appropriately.

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Daily Broadside | May You and Yours Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Daily Verse | 1 Corinthians 5:12-13
What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.

Thursday’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 9-11

It’s the fourth Thursday of November and the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in 1621. I hope you are able to spend some time reflecting on the meaning of this day (see yesterday’s post) and draw a straight line from the brave men and women who sailed to the New World, endured hardship that we can’t imagine in our 21st century, and paved the way for “a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.“

Given the anti-American gyrations of the cultural Marxists who intend to destroy our history based on warped leftist moral judgments like the discredited (yet still influential) 1619 Project, the expungement of Founding statesmen like Thomas Jefferson, and the twisted attacks on Thanksgiving, it is more important than ever that patriotic Americans find their voices and model a healthy reverence for our history to their children, extended family and neighbors.

Consistently countering lies with the truth over a sustained period of time in your local context is one of the most effective ways of protecting our culture and values.

That means you need to know our country’s history, which means you may need to take some time to learn our country’s history yourself. May you be motivated to do it.

I wish you and yours a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

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Daily Broadside | You Can Make Thanksgiving Day Meaningful This Year

Daily Verse | 1 Corinthians 2:2
For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

Wednesday’s Reading: 1 Corinthians 5-8

It’s Wednesday and thanks for joining me for today’s Daily Broadside. I’m finding that eating a clock is very time-consuming.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. The holiday is based on the fact that the Pilgrims held a three-day festival sometime between late September and early November, 1621. The festival was to celebrate their first harvest, having arrived a year earlier and enduring a brutal winter, then being saved from starvation by Squanto, an English-speaking Indian who taught the Pilgrims how to plant and fish.

Of the 102 passengers who made the crossing from Europe, only 53 survived to celebrate in the fall of 1621. We know about that celebration from two colonists who wrote personal accounts of the feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The first is from William Bradford, the governor, who wrote in his book, Of Plymouth Plantation,

“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to the proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.”

The second is from Edward Winslow writing in Mourt’s Relation,

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.”

So the feast was held to celebrate their good fortune and to specifically thank God for his bountiful provision of their very first harvest in the New World.

These days Thanksgiving is mostly a secular holiday that is all about the fixings, like turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and football. Those of us who have faith in God will try to make a meaningful connection between that first Thanksgiving and our own modern-day feast, which may or may not reflect a “so plentiful” harvest. Nonetheless, we are grateful and thankful for the provision that God does make in our lives.

This year is a milestone year to celebrate the first Thanksgiving — 400 years ago. This would be a good year to share the story of the first Thanksgiving with your family and to be thankful for what you have in a similar way. Here’s a couple of good sites to use for the background:

History of Massachusetts: History of the First Thanksgiving
The True Story of That First Thanksgiving

Happy 400th Anniversary!