Thanksgiving is less than a week away, but my internal clock is telling me it should have been this week. Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday in November, that date was decided by an act of Congress in 1941. And like most everything else, that date was determined by money. Here is a little turkey day info I dug up. The first “Day of Publick Thanksgiving” was on Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789. For decades after that, the date and even the month for Thanksgiving moved around, with each president having to set the date every year.
President Abraham Lincoln was the first to try to establish some order, declaring in 1863 that it would fall on the last day of November.
That worked for a while, but in 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt became concerned if Thanksgiving was slated to fall on the last day of the month, it could potentially shorten Christmas shopping and stall economic recovery. He moved the holiday to the second to last Thursday in November. That ended up splitting the country, with thirty-two states going along with the changes and sixteen refusing to do so.
So, two years later, Congress got involved, setting Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November, which considered when the month has five Thursdays, so the holiday would not fall on the last day of the month.
It just so happens that in 2024, the last day of October was on a Thursday, thus causing the delay. If you are into numbers, then the 28th is the latest date possible for Thanksgiving to fall. But I have no problem dragging out the holiday season. I love this time of the year, although it was odd seeing Christmas decorations on the shelves in early October. It’s not very often you see jack -o-lanterns, plastic turkeys, and Frosty the Snowman plates on the same aisle in a store. I can only assume Christmas cheer was placed on sale earlier in the year due to the fact there are fewer days to shop for Santa after Thanksgiving Day.
I’m beginning to figure out how all this works!
Halloween is about trick or treating, wearing costumes and kids feasting on tootsie rolls. I’m not really sure how Halloween started, but from what I can see, there is not a great deal of reflection or depth to the holiday, but it is fun when you have grandkids! There is nothing lasting to Halloween, when it’s over, it’s over and quickly forgotten.
Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ. It can get blurry with Santa Claus, the Grinch, and packages under the tree. I have no problem with that, in fact I love it. But the financial and emotional stress of buying the perfect gift while weaving through a sea of last-minute buyers can drown out the holiday cheer. Oftentimes the days after Christmas are spent returning gifts and looking for receipts. Christmas is complex, and I’m always glad when it’s over.
But Thanksgiving is exactly that – a time to give thanks. No scary witch flying around on a broomstick, no fat man in a red suit squeezing down a chimney, just a day set aside to be thankful. To me, it is the purest of all the holidays. No gimmicks, just a day dedicated to expressing gratitude for the relationships I have in my life.
I look forward to watching my grandkids, nieces and nephews climb onto a flatbed trailer blanketed with coastal hay for an evening hayride to sing Christmas carols. That’s been a family tradition for years, and we just keep adding kids! We close out the evening, adults included, with an epic silly string war that reaches biblical proportions. Cases of empty silly string cans scatter the battlefield after five minutes of uncontrollable chaos. It’s a blast.
Seeing my family happy, healthy, and enjoying one another is rewarding. I’d have to create a new word to genuinely express how thankful I feel when I witness that. Awesome just does not suffice. I don’t ever want Thanksgiving to be over.
It takes no money to be thankful – no shopping required – simply take time to look around the room and absorb the blessings in life.
I am thankful for the relationships I have with my family, my handful of good friends, my creator, and even my dog Cash. I know they will show up for me, what’s more important than that?
Relationships are the good stuff, the meaningful stuff, the stuff that works, the stuff which makes life worth loving and living. There is no better time than the fourth Thursday in November to express that.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].