Giving Thanks Part Two

Why Give Thanks?

Part Two

Giving thanks to God, whatever the religion or belief system, has been part of every culture since time immemorial: for health, for victory over rivals and for plentiful harvests. Special dates are set for these Festivals and most are celebrated on an annual basis.

The tradition of Thanksgiving in the United States has its roots in English history. In 1536, during the reign of King Henry Ⅷ, there were 95 Church holidays and 52 Sundays, when no work was allowed and attending Church services was mandatory. After the Reformation, this number was reduced to 27, with some Puritans wishing to eliminate Christmas and Easter festivities, too!

The 'Holy Days' became Days of Fasting and Days of Thanksgiving. Fasting Days were to mark disasters and threats and Thanksgiving Days to celebrate special blessings coming from God.

Puritans and Pilgrims who emigrated from England took these traditions with them to New England. Pilgrim holidays in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621 and 1623 and the Puritan holiday in Boston in 1631 are among the first Thanksgiving Days recognised in American history.

Harvest festivals did not become an annual affair in New England until the late 1660's, when Dutch-held territories in the New World were seized by the English. Thanksgiving proclamations were declared by both State and Church until after the American Revolution and were invariably on differing dates. An annual nationwide Thanksgiving date was announced by George Washington in 1789 and it was to be known as “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God.”

In 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed that the last Thursday in November was to be a day when all Americans, from Northern and Southern States, joined together in unity to celebrate Thanksgiving. Unfortunately the Confederacy refused to recognise Lincoln's authority and it was not implemented until the Reconstruction in the 1870's.

On 26^th December 1941, President Franklin D Roosevelt signed a joint resolution in Congress citing the fourth Thursday In November as the national Thanksgiving Day.

It is always with a sense of envy that I watch reports of Americans celebrating this very important festival. People travel for hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles to be reunited with their relatives on this special day and reaffirm their love and care for one another and their country.

In England, we do not have any comparable occasion. The Scots have Burn's Night, the Irish celebrate St.Patrick's Day and the Welsh have St. David. St. George's Day, honouring our English Saint, is a lukewarm, recently revived attempt at recognising England, but somehow it only seems to be drunks and fanatics who enjoy it, nor do our harvest festivals have quite the importance or relevance they once had with the advent of supermarkets and all-year-round imported foodstuffs. In a way it's very sad and not having our Day of Thanksgiving doesn't allow us to embrace our past and acknowledge those that built our country.

America – your ancestors survived unimaginable hardships in crossing the Atlantic, starvation, hostile environments, adversities we can only wonder at, but your adventurous spirit and sense of nationality prevailed - you should always give thanks for that!

To read my novel, the Love of Money, set in the 17th century beginnings of Dutch Manhattan, later to become New York, please go to this link

https://tinyurl.com/yblfbv5t

To read the first 50 pages of the book, please click on the following link https://tinyurl.com/yc7746e9