Thanksgiving is relatively a new celebration
Holiday is relatively a new celebration
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
The American notion of pausing amid life's endless toil to break bread and give thanks harks back to that first fabled encounter between pilgrims and the Indians who welcomed them. But the holiday that has come to be known as Thanksgiving is a comparatively recent confection.
Autumn harvest feasts often marked the seasons for farm families and their communities, but with little, if any, formal ritual. George Washington had declared a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, but it fell out of favor.
That changed in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln officially declared "a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our benificent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." Thanksgiving, then celebrated on the last Thursday of November, was born.
(In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved up the date, an act that caused a huge uproar among residents of some states who routinely celebrated on Nov. 30, the date Lincoln himself first celebrated, as well as traditionalists, calendar printers and some small retailers who felt the president caved to big retailers who feared a shortened Christmas shopping season. Finally, on Dec. 26, 1941, Congress passed a law designating the fourth Thursday of November as a unified national day of observance.)
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Mary
"resident shameless hussie"
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