Happy Thanksgiving

I can still remember the morning of Thanksgiving when I was young. The smell of the turkey cooking in the oven wafting through the house… the smell was heavenly. And then the preparation of the dressing and potatoes and gravy added to the smell and the ambience… the table being set. And then the first bite…..wow.

When I was young, we only had turkey once a year on Thanksgiving. As I got older, we would have it more frequently… but there was always something very special about Thanksgiving Turkey. 

Here’s some “Turkey Trivia” that I came across:

• Benjamin Franklin proposed the turkey as the official United States bird….yikes, maybe Ben wasn’t a genius.
• 88% of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving? 
• Over 230 million turkeys are produced in the U.S. every year.
• In 1970, 50% of all turkey consumed was during the holidays, now just 29% of all turkey consumed is during the holidays …. hmmmmm. just what I thought.
• In 1920, U.S. turkey growers produced one turkey for every 29 persons in the U.S. Today growers produce nearly one turkey for every person in the country…. yes, eating turkey is not as rare as when I was young. 

Well enough about turkeys…what about Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving became an official holiday when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November each year to be a Day of National Thanksgiving….“ a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe.” This was in the midst of the desperate Civil War.  Thanksgiving is primarily a American holiday. Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.

So, let’s pause on this Thanksgiving 2022 and thank God for our many blessings. Let’s thank him for our life and health and family and friends and nation. We are so blessed. And let’s always first thank him for his love and mercy poured out upon us from the cross. He has offered to us the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of eternal life in heaven. God is so wonderful and kind to us.  Sure we have problems, but the Lord is with us in the midst of them and will help us…he will never abandon us. 

Happy Thanksgiving!  Don’t forget to smile and love. Relax and enjoy one another. Eat a lot of turkey, enjoy the football games, take a walk, take a nap. If someone is annoying you, remember St. Francis’s prayer.  

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy. 

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive, 
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.