HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!
Celebrating in Spain is a tad bit different, especially with all of the fam off at a family reunion back in the States! But we are making the most of this most joyous "day of eating." I realized yesterday, as I was about to go to class and talk about Thanksgiving, that I really did not remember the history of said holiday. I learned quite a bit from Wikipedia. The first recorded Thanksgiving celebration and meal was in fact... Spanish! It happened in 1565 when about 600 Spaniards landed in Florida and ate and gave thanks for safe travels across the Atlantic! The more traditional story of Thanksgiving didn't happen until the 1620s in Plymouth when Squanto helped show the Pilgrims how to eat/celebrated the harvest.
It was not even an official holiday until 1863!! The early Presidents had to appoint a Thanksgiving Day and Thomas Jefferson didn't even do this during his term in office! George Washington said this about making a day of Thanksgiving:
"to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. 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"
Talk about run-on sentences. But I just think this was so cool! It was Abraham Lincoln who made it an official holiday to be celebrated on the last Thursday of every November. FDR was the one who changed it to the 4th Thursday of November in 1939. In 1941, Congress passed a bill declaring officially that Thanksgiving would be celebrated on this day! So Thanksgiving, federally speaking, is less than 100 years old!! What young traditions we Americans have! Just another reason I feel like every time I talk to a Spaniard about America, they are always thinking like the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when he said "While my people were developing philosophy, your people were still swinging from trees." Ha.
Hope everyone has a great holiday! We found a turkey and marshmallows for sweet potatoes so we have a whole spread planned out! Stay warm, eat well and have a great time with your family or wherever you may be! Many blessings!!!
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