People around the world share the need to be thankful
Stress for Success, November 21, 2006
For who-knows-how-long people around the world have celebrated their annual harvests. Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in October, the British have Harvest Festival in the fall, Jewish people celebrate Sukkot, the festival of thanksgiving that lasts nine days, and the Chinese have an equivalent celebration during the eighth month of their calendar. Whatever a culture calls it, a day of thanks is a wonderful opportunity to reflect upon your blessings and to be grateful for them.

The first recognized American Thanksgiving meal took place in 1621 with the Plimouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians celebrating their autumn harvest. The pilgrims continued with this annual celebration thereafter. Or did they?

According to James W. Baker, senior historian at Plimouth Plantation, the first feast was not even called Thanksgiving and wasn’t repeated so it wasn’t the beginning of a tradition. To them, a “thanksgiving” was a religious holiday to thank God for specific blessings. At this first feast the Pilgrims and their new neighbors participated in dancing, singing and playing games, which would never have been allowed at a religious event, making the original feast a secular celebration.

The Pilgrims shared this initial feast with the Wampanoags who had taught them how to survive in their new land. Without them the Pilgrims may not have had successful harvests or endured the harsh winter.

The original feast in 1621 was based on English harvest festivals and lasted three days. After the Plimouth colonists’ first harvest, Governor William Bradford declared a day of thanksgiving shared by the colonists and Indians. Then in 1623 a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of Thanksgiving because the rain came during the prayers. Gradually the custom of annually celebrating the fall harvest took root in New England.

The Continental Congress during the American Revolution suggested an annual day of national Thanksgiving. In 1817 New York State adopted Thanksgiving Day as a yearly tradition, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states followed. In 1863 President Lincoln appointed Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November, which he may have associated with the November 21, 1621 landing of the Mayflower at Cape Cod. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939, which was approved by Congress in 1941.

It’s a wonderful tradition and given its pervasiveness in cultures around the world it seems to speak to the human need to acknowledge our blessings. It connects us with family and community in a way that can help us to appreciate the importance of each other in bringing in our harvests, even the modern-day harvest for most Americans, which is through our jobs.

So enjoy your Thanksgiving week. Put your mind into a thankful place with even the craziness that sometimes can accompany such a busy holiday. Give your co-workers, customers and bosses a break. Be grateful you have a job. Forgive your family members or friends whose habits aggravate you. Be thankful you have them in your life instead. Look at life in general this week through grateful eyes. How does that change things? What would happen if we did it 365 days a year?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com or call 239-693-8111 for information about her workshops on this and other topics or to invite her to speak to your organization.