Every Day Should Be A Day Of Thanks!

Tomorrow, the fourth Thursday of November, is the day set aside when Americans cook massive amounts of food which of course leads to consuming massive amounts of food!

Pulling out and dusting off the fancy china, shimmering goblets and exquisite silverware, which is usually tucked far behind the normal every day dishes and utensils, so that a lovely table can be prepared on which to set that massive amount of food! 

It's a day to get together with family members, some of whom you have not seen since last Thanksgiving!

Televisions will be tuned in as the marching bands, colorful floats and the super HUGE balloons begin making their way down the streets of New York for the Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Then later as the pumpkin pie and whipped cream are passed around for seconds and thirds, televisions will be broadcasting loud and clear for all to hear one football game after another! 

Then you have the early shoppers who will hit the stores at midnight or camp out overnight in hopes of beating the crowds on Black Friday and snagging the best bargains in an attempt to put a huge dent in their Christmas shopping list!

It's definitely a day meant for food, family, fun and football!

But what about
giving of thanks?

That IS the very reason why the holiday of Thanksgiving was established in the first place.

"Thanksgiving became celebrated as a federal holiday every year since 1863, when, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,"  to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November.  

The event which Americans usually call the "First Thanksgiving" was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World in 1621.  This feast lasted three days, and, as accounted by attendee Edward Winslow, it was attended by ninety Native Americans and fifty-three Pilgrims. 

The New England colonists were accustomed to regularly celebrating "thanksgivings", which were days of prayer thanking God for blessings such as military victory or the end of a drought."
quoted from wikipedia

EVERY day
should be
Thanksgiving!

Well not the eating of massive amounts of food and watching football all day!  

But the giving of thanks!  

We shouldn't wait for a special day to thank our Saviour for all He has done for us and all the blessings He bestows upon us each and EVERY day!

Oh, what truth is held in those words.

And, oh, what ABSOLUTE TRUTH is held in these words! 

"Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.  For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations."
Psalm 100:4-5

"Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Ephesians 5:20 

"O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is  good: for his mercy endureth for ever."
Psalm 107:1

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful."
Colossians 3:15

"Praise ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever."
Psalm 106:1

"In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."
I Thessalonians 5:18

Finally, as you're wrapping up your Thanksgiving Day with your fourth and fifth piece of pumpkin pie smathered in whipped cream.

Here are some fun Thanksgiving tidbits you can share with your family and friends:

• Americans eat roughly 535 MILLION pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving!

• The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade began in 1924 with 400 employees marching from Convent Avenue to 145th Street in New York City.  No large balloons were at this parade, as it featured only live animals from Central Park Zoo!

• The Pilgrims ate items like lobster, hickory nuts, cabbage, goat cheese, squash, boiled pumpkin, deer, venison, ducks, geese, oysters, eel and fish at the first Thanksgiving.

• Turkey does NOT make you tired.  It contains no more tryptophan than cheese or chicken!  Overeating is what makes you tired!!

• For the past sixty-seven years, the president pardons a turkey every Thanksgiving.  The pardoned turkeys get to live on a farm until they die of old age!

• Snoopy has been in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade more than any other giant balloon character!

• On the West Coast of the US, Dungeness crab is common as an alternate main dish instead of turkey, as crab season starts in early November.

• The first Thanksgiving dinner was eaten with spoons and knives, but NO forks!  Forks weren't introduced to the Pilgrims until ten years later and weren't a popular utensil until the 18th century.

• Thanksgiving is the reason for TV dinners!  In 1953, Swanson had so much extra turkey (260 tons) that a salesman told them they should package it onto aluminum trays with other sides like sweet potatoes, and thus the first TV dinner was born!

• Thanksgiving was almost a FAST and not a feast!  The early settlers gave thanks by praying and abstaining from food, which is what they planned on doing to celebrate their first harvest, that is, until the Wampanoag Indians joined them and (thankfully for us!) turned their fast into a three-day feast!

• Female turkeys (called hens) do not gobble.  Only male turkeys gobble!

• Campbell's soup first created green bean casserole for a cookbook fifty years ago.  It now sells $20 million worth of cream of mushroom soup!

• Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's first meal in space after walking on the moon was foil packets with roasted turkey!

• The Pilgrims did not wear buckled hats and dress only in black and white.  In fact, buckles did not come into fashion until later in the 17th century, and the pilgrims usually saved their formal black and white colors for Sunday.

• Now a Thanksgiving dinner staple, cranberries were actually used by Native Americans to treat arrow wounds and to dye clothes.

• The average American will consume about 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving Day, or about 3,000 for the meal and an additional 1,500 for snacking!!!   

I pray that you all have a blessed and very Happy Thanksgiving filled with lots of food, fun, family time, football, and most of all giving of thanks to The One Who bestows all the blessings upon us.

I couldn't think of a more appropriate song for a Thanksgiving Day post than one that speaks of giving "Praise to the Lord, The Almighty"!

---

If you have been helped by this post and think it could be helpful to someone you know, please share this post on the social network of your choice for me.

All you have to do is click one of the buttons below.

May God Bless You,

Barb