Here is a little turkey day info I dug up. The first “Day of Public 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.

I have no problem dragging out the holiday season. I love this time of the year, although it is odd seeing Christmas decorations on store 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.

Halloween is about trick or treating, wearing costumes and kids feasting on tootsie rolls and Jolly Ranchers. 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 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 all 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 rushed, 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, great nieces and nephews climb onto a flatbed trailer blanketed with coastal hay for a hayride to sing Christmas carols. Then capping the evening off with an epic silly string war … it’s carnage. Both have been a family tradition for years, and we just keep adding kids! The laughter and conversations are music to my ears, and I know my mom can hear it from above.

Seeing my family happy, healthy, and enjoying one another is gratifying. I’d have to create a new word to genuinely express how thankful I feel when I witness that. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious comes close, but it is still not sufficient.

It takes no money to be thankful; no shopping is required. It just takes a moment to look around the table on Thanksgiving Day and recognize the countless blessings of life.

Relationships are the good stuff in life – the meaningful stuff – the type of stuff which makes life worth loving and living.

No column next week, gonna be too busy enjoying the stuff that works.

Happy Thanksgiving.

***

Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].